Our coast to coast and back again trip started with Lane & Matt dropping the rest of us off at the airport in Raleigh. We had originally thought the entire family would take the drive both directions but after careful thought about how little time that left us to visit family, we decided that I would fly out with JD & Moriah and then we would all drive back together. That made it easier for Lane & Matt to take a quick trip across, making it to California in less than 4 days (about 2600 miles, through 8 states).
They did stop for some fun breaks, including a visit with Lane's cousin Robin in Arkansas. But mainly they drove a lot and slept in the truck. It was good bonding time for them. JD & Lane had taken a similar trip just the two of them when we moved to Indiana, so we were glad Matt was able to have that special time with Daddy too. I hear Matt did really good too. He mainly stayed in his pj's and asked to "stop and rest" from time to time, where he just wanted to get out of his car seat and lay down on the floorboard of the truck.
Our flight out was okay. JD was great though he was a bit upset by the extra hour delay in the Vegas airport. Moriah was harder to contain and my lap has gotten so much smaller since the baby belly has grown. But we survived the 6 hours in airplanes and 4 hours in airports.
My Dad picked us up in Los Angeles, CA and we enjoyed hanging out with him for about a day. Then we met up with my Mom and nephew Jacob for a nice dinner at one of our old homesteads, Oxnard, and went on up to her home in San Luis Obispo. We stayed with her for a couple days and let JD & Jacob spend great time playing together.
Then we traveled over to meet up with Lane & Matt at Lane's mom's house in Coalinga. I sure missed Matt and it was so good to be reunited with both of them. We stayed there at Nana's house for a couple days, enjoying time with her and Aunt Sis, and celebrating JD's birthday with many of his cousins. JD had a Easter-Halloween-Bug themed birthday party, including an Easter egg hunt that were filled with toy & candy bugs and playing musical instruments with fun music. It was quite the party.
After the party, it was time to head back over to San Luis Obispo for an Easter celebration with more cousins. I, unfortunately, was sick by this point in the trip. Some stomach bug started out with Moriah on our first day in CA and moved through the entire family. Somehow it affected me the hardest - or maybe I'm the biggest wimp - but it was good to be at my Mom's where there were plenty of adults to oversee the kids and plenty of cousins to entertain my kids so that I could just sleep. I don't know why, but at least part of us have been sick on the past three visits out to California. I hope that's not a pattern we continue.
Now began the "fun" part of the trip - the loooong drive. You may be wondering by now why we even planned a vacation like this. Well, we have been planning it since we moved out to North Carolina in July. Lane wanted to drive out to return the trailer he had been using to help us move to both Indiana and North Carolina. We picked this time of year because it was spring (so supposedly the weather would be good - who knew that a late winter storm would come?) and it was a good time for both Lane's work and before the baby arrived. We figured this would be our big vacation before we became a larger family, which makes it harder and yet more expensive to travel, and before Lane was supposedly deploying, though if he's actually going to deploy at all is up in the air at this point. Our other two recent trips to CA were after-thoughts, the first because of a class Lane had out there and the second because of a friend's wedding.
Our later added bonus to this trip was the ability to buy a vehicle from Lane's cousin Alan. We decided to replace our truck with their Excursion that has enough seats to fit the four car seats comfortably while still leaving enough room for us to have extra passengers, like the family that we love having come visit. Lane also likes that it is big enough to haul things, like the dresser we brought back from his Mom's house, and pull a trailer, so it is sort of like having a truck.
Well, at this point you may be ready for a picture break. I'm trying something new with the pictures to keep them better organized on my laptop and easily upload them for you to view. Hopefully this will work by clicking on the picture below to view the album.
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| Spring Trip 2007 |
We had eight days to make our trip from sea to shining sea, which allowed us time for plenty of sight-seeing and visits with family and friends. I think we only did two days of really traveling, where we stopped for just fairly short breaks when we needed to. The boys were excellent travelers. I was really impressed with them. Moriah, on the other hand, was more of a challenge. So between Moriah's impatience and my need for bathroom breaks, we did have to stop often. Though strangely for me personally, as a quite pregnant woman, this long travel by car was way easier than the shorter travel by plane.
We also took a very long route home. South Dakota really isn't on the way from CA to NC, but we so rarely get out to visit my grandmas and other family in SD that we wanted to take this opportunity to visit them. We were only there for about a day, but it was a really nice visit. My Aunt Norma and Uncle Chuck were gracious hosts, even throwing a little dinner get-together so we could see all the family at once. Then we also spent just some one-on-one time with each of my grandmas. I'm so glad we went there. I just hope we can have a longer visit next time.
Lane's best friend from college, Kyle, is located so centrally in Kansas City that I think he has visited him on every one of his cross-country trips (and Lane has done quite a few!). Kyle & Angela have three little boys, so with our three little ones we very much filled up their home. The kids had a great time together and we enjoyed catching up with Kyle & Angela. Congrats to them on expecting baby number four!
Other than those big stops, we did briefer touristy stops in other places, like a Superman museum and the Great Smoky Mountains. I enjoyed watching the different countryside roll by our windows. It's amazing how different it is from state to state. We did encounter some snow but never enough to cause us trouble driving. And we went through very little rain, so we were thankful for safe travels (about 3600 miles, through 12 states).
I'm sorry that I don't remember any funny stories from the trip. JD was funny calling me "Ma" - I have no idea why but that is now his name of choice for me. JD also picked out Charlotte's Web for us to read on our trip. I'm so glad he did as we really enjoyed reading it (we aren't quite done yet). Matt was funny with saying "When you see a stop sign, let's stop and rest." He was quite tired of so much time in his car seat, but he was good about it. Moriah used her two favorite magic words, the words that she sees make us jump into action: "please" and "help", along with a sprinkling of "all done", meaning "I am so very much done with this car seat and please help me get out of it!" Unfortunately, she's quite impatient with us understanding her communication but not granting her requests. Her other two favorite words of the trip were "cookie" and "candy". Gotta love the things they learn from Easter.
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