If you want to lose three to five years of your life in the
course of two weeks, do the following:
pack up your house, clean it top to bottom, sob uncontrollably as you
say goodbye to dear friends (in front of them and on pillow), and load up all
of your belongings on a large truck, then drive 2,500 miles in a car with your
breastfeeding infant and 2-year-old (off and on), with no relief from another
adult (because the other adult is driving aforementioned truck with 5 year old while
towing our other car, then park at a house you have only seen in pictures, and
unload all of your things while trying to entertain two kids and baby. This is not a sob story, I don't mean to complain. This is not a "Look-at-how-amazing-I-am-and-read-my-blog"
either.
It is merely the story of how I traveled from California to
Florida. And I want to write it down
because I doubt I will ever do it again.
To Arizona
We really wanted to make it from Southern California to New
Mexico in one, long haul. But after
giving the truck a test run (barely moves above 60mph) and considering our
near-dead exhaustion from packing and loading,
we moved up the move! We drove to
Phoenix the night before we planned to leave.
Just a 5 hour drive. No
problem. Until. Until the lines on the road and the hum of
the motor massage my consciousness into a hypnotic state. Until One yawn, two. Until More of the hum, more of that same,
stagnant desert landscape. Until I Could
really sleep right now. Until I want to
close my eyes! STAB ME SO IM DEAD, AND MY EYES ARE CLOSED, AND I DON'T HAVE TO
DRIVE ANYMORE!!! It was time for some caffeine.
I'm not a big supporter of caffeine
loading or substance loading of any kind.
But when precious lives hang in the balance I took a few liberties.
We arrived in Phoenix about 12:00 AM local time, La Quinta
our go-to motel of the trip. We peeled the kids from their mold of
blankies, snacks, junk and got them to bed without much argument. The little guy (3.5 months) had a plan of his
own and would only sleep next to me, of-and-on,
while breatfeeding, of-and-on. So
I had the sort of sleep you have when you are half-sleeping, half-trying not to
squish your infant, half still driving, half worried some hoodlum is stealing 8
years of the life we've built together from the back of the moving truck. It's a lot of halves to deal with when I'm
supposed to be sound asleep.
Breakfast was really good and I LOADED up. I mean, bacon, eggs, waffle, syrup, orange
juice, milk-LOAD UP. And we were on the
road again, off to NEW MEXICO.
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