In the winter of 2009 we decided to take a little road trip. The word 'little' may be understating it a bit.
We actually drove from Huntsville, Alabama to Snowmass, Colorado. That would be one thousand four hundred and sixty eight miles.
Let me restate that:
That would be one thousand four hundred and sixty eight miles with a seven year old, a four year old, and a six month old.
We borrowed my Dad's behemoth SUV. That six month old baby did not travel light.
We did this many a time:
That is, stopped in empty fields beside gas stations.
Things we found in these fields:
Cigarette butts,
Half eaten burritos,
and
Kittens.
No, we did not take any of the above items home.
Other things we found on the drive?
Gigantic Superman statues:
Cool walking trails along the Missouri River:
This was one was part of the 'Rails to Trails' project.
Rails to Trails is an organization that takes abandoned railroad lines and turns them into multi use pathways.
This one beside the Missouri River was amazing. It was called the Katy Trail. It actually ran for over 250 miles. Unfortunately it was freezing!
The six month old's cheeks and nose were as pink as they could be.
I didn't care. We'd use any excuse to get out of that car. And she loved riding in that little carrier.
So, convenient store parking lots, open fields, kittens, walking trails and Superman Statues.
And that was less than half way there!
I'll blog about the next leg of the journey tomorrow.
Re your picture sitting on the blanket in the empty field. When our oldest was 15 months or so we drove cross country on our way to duty in Italy. When we were too tired to press on we would stop at rest areas, put our daughter's harness on her, clip it to a long lead, pound an eyebolt into the ground and clip the lead into it and then lay back right at the outer edge of the perimeter of the circle and let her run around while we relaxed. We got some grief from buttinskis but phooey on them.
ReplyDeleteI think that makes perfect sense! While waiting in line to vote in 2004 I had the oldest with me who was a toddler. The line was really long so I took some ribbon in my purse and tied it to the back of his overalls. He would run away form me and then fall when the slack got taut but it wasn't hurting him and he thought it was funny. You gotta do what you gotta do.
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