Flabby Brain

We made it safely back after putting 3,245 miles on the Family Truckster in a mere 9 days, which averages out to a daily drive from Austin, Texas to Norman, Oklahoma.

I can’t believe I’m able to write this truthfully, but the kids were awesome. They were *way* better behaved than I was on family vacations growing up. In fact, I think they were probably better behaved than I was on this family vacation. Mama suffered a coffee shortage.

In all those miles they only watched 3 or 4 movies. The rest of the time they played together, sang together, looked out the window, and just generally got along. It was crazy. Not once did The Big M and I joke about putting a bubble dome over the kids’ section of the car, a la The Homer. And we used to joke about that a lot.

The Homer

More memorable moments:

• Getting a personalized walking tour of the University of Illinois from my father-in-law, an alumnus who hadn’t been back to campus in 37 years
• Ending our driving tour of the campus when my father-in-law decided to take off down a sidewalk (which, to be fair, was unpopulated, wide enough for a vehicle, and possibly a street 37 years ago) (and also, to be fair, was hilarious)
• Hanging out with the siblings- and parents-in-law and nieces and nephew who separately drove up from Texas
• Reuniting with The Big M’s Iowa relatives
• Reacquainting ourselves with the major food groups of Iowa: roast beef, mashed potatoes, corn, and pizza
• Having taco pizza (taco meat, lettuce, tomatoes, and crushed Doritos), Reuben pizza (sauerkraut and Canadian bacon), and breakfast pizza (eggs, bacon, and cheese)
• Eating chocolate pie at Bishop’s cafeteria
• Taking my little daughter for her very first mani/pedi, where she chose the delightful color combination of alternating pastel green and blue for her nails
• Discovering that her nails actually match most of her clothes now
• Finding out at the rehearsal dinner that a modular home company I’ve been interested in learning more about is not only building a home for a cousin, but has a factory located in the very town where we were eating
• And they give factory tours
• Which the bride used to give
• And which I missed by a few hours, hours during which I slept late, got a mani/pedi with my daughter, and ate chocolate pie
• Feeling like an idiot for missing said factory tour because I have toyed with the idea of taking a vacation to a town near one of the factories just to take a tour
• Spending part of the wedding day touring the model homes outside of the closed factory
• Spending another part taking the kids to the Field of Dreams in Dyersville
• And then to Happy Joes for more taco pizza
• Dancing that night at the wedding with my husband to the first slow song
• Trying to keep from laughing as we danced because the song was Conway Twitty’s “I Can Tell You’ve Never Been This Far Before“
• Meeting a couple of awesome great aunts of my husband’s at the wedding
• Watching my 8-year-old son give stock tips outside the reception hall (“I’d wait on BP,” he says.)
• Driving back to the hotel with the stereo turned up and all of us singing our vacation anthem, “Hey Soul Sister” by Train, at the top of our lungs while thousands of fireflies sparkled above the cornfields
• Enjoying Sunday breakfast (and breakfast pizza) at Aunt Bonnie’s house with all the relatives
• Feeling astonished that the little daughter who never wants to be apart from Mama begged to stay behind with Aunt Bonnie and all of her newly discovered cousins
• Driving through the Kansas prairie as night fell, admiring the incredible scenery of lightning dancing over endless plains
• Driving through flooding in Wichita, Kansas and barely making it through the blinding rain and darkness to our hotel
• Which was on The Waterfront
• Asking for an upper floor at the hotel in case flooding got out of hand in the middle of the night
• Discovering the next morning that The Waterfront was a half-acre man-made pond
• Driving through Oklahoma City on the day of record rainfall — 10 inches — flooding the city
• Feeling grateful that we weren’t flooded ourselves, and only had to be diverted off of I-35 once
• Singing “Hey Soul Sister” at the top of our lungs as we crossed the border into Texas
• Pulling into our driveway five hours later, grateful to be home

We had a great trip and built a lot of memories. Pictures still to come.

We’ve made it nearly 1,500 miles through five states in five days, and so far the family vacation has been a blast, ticks notwithstanding. I was worried about pulling off this itinerary with two relatively little kids, but they have been awesome. I mean really, truly, exceptional. I’m bragging on them while I can because the trip home — 18 hours of driving in two days — will be brutal.

Interesting moments of the last few days include:

• Getting a Turkish-style bath in Hot Springs, Arkansas
• Eating at an awesome dive bar/burger joint in Hot Springs where the regulars greeted us as welcome guests
• Watching my 8-year-old son battle wits with a docent at The Hermitage in Tennessee (Guide: How do you think they made this color of paint for the walls? Son: They used materials from the plantation grounds. Guide, amazed: That’s correct.)
• Seeing Trisha Yearwood perform at The Grand Ole Opry in Nashville
• Missing the last third of Trisha’s set because my daughter had a nosebleed
• Watching Corvettes roll off the assembly line in Bowling Green, Kentucky
• Hiking through a section of Mammoth Cave, and checking off a second national park for the trip
• Holding my daughter during the extended lights-out portion of the cave tour, a time that was really, freakily, utterly black
• Realizing after the black-out portion of the tour that a middle-aged woman had had a particularly smelly accident in her pants
• Feeling gratitude that I was not said middle-aged woman
• Resisting the urge to mention this commercial after said accident
• Trying White Castle sliders for the first time after our cave tour
• Throwing away White Castle sliders after two bites
• Wondering if lady on cave tour had eaten White Castle sliders prior to tour
• Checking into a very ritzy, posh, chic hotel in, of all places, Evansville, Indiana
• Paying about a third of what one would expect to pay at an equivalent hotel in a major city
• Realizing that said hotel was probably so ritzy because it is attached to a casino
• Lounging in plushy white bathrobe after showering in fancy four-head shower and watching my precious children sleep in the bed next to mine while their daddy checks out the casino
• Having no urge to gamble because I suck at it. Example: I would have bet money that the Canadian sorority girl whining about needing to pee before our two-hour cave tour with no bathroom stops would have had an accident before anyone else. And I would have been wrong.
• And finally, an interesting moment that occurred while I was writing this post: watching my husband recount how he lost $200 at the craps table in his hour at the casino only to follow up by nailing quad deuces at video poker and cashing out a $2,000 jackpot. Woo-hoo! Free trip!

Even before that last point we were having an awesome trip. I’m looking forward to posting pictures once we get home.

This was the view from the back porch of our cabin near Hot Springs, Arkansas.

Those woods are lovely, aren’t they? They totally sucked me in.

Daddy suggested that the kids watch a movie in the cabin during our afternoon rest time. Oh no, I insisted. We need to walk on the trail through these lovely woods first.

We’re tired, and it’s 95 degrees out, Dad persisted, with maddening rationality. I glared at him. I do *not* want my children sitting inside watching a movie when we could be walking through the woods.

I’m not always responsive to rationality.

So we hiked. And it was really freaking hot. By the time we found ourselves beside the little stock pond watching a crew of day-old baby ducks hanging out in the shade, I had come around to his point of view. But the ducks proved to be a bigger draw than a movie in air-conditioning, and it took a good while to get the kids back to the cabin. Meanwhile, my handsome husband sat calmly in the grass, herding our children away from the steep pond edge, ignoring the Arkansas sun pounding on us, and smiling at me without malice.

And this is one of the big reasons I love him: he’s not the “I told you so” type.

It was just as well, because I got mine later. And am still getting it.

Ticks. Horrible little blood-sucking arachnids. The buggers have been crawling on me for two days. I found my first two while cooling off in the cabin. I crushed them and immediately took a hot shower and put on fresh clothes. That night I woke up to the feel of one crawling on my neck. I crushed it, and took a long, hot bath the next morning and put on clean clothes.

And just now I found another dang tick on my ankle. So I’m going to go take another shower. And put on an outfit from my dwindling supply of clean clothes.

Rest assured that the kids and husband are tick-free. This is all on me.

I’m back in beautiful central Texas, arriving just in time for The Big M to take off on a business trip to Santa Fe. In honor of our recent air travel (and because I don’t feel like drawing anything tonight), I present to you a wonderful drawing done last week by The Girl:

Isn’t that just the most wonderful airplane ever? She told me that Mama is flying it. I especially love the “42″ on the tail. The image isn’t flipped — she wrote it as a mirror image. I am flying amongst the stars. This picture makes me happy.

What also makes me happy is being back home. I enjoyed getting to know my sister in a new context. I enjoyed the Deep South, particularly Mrs. Wilkes’ Boarding House in Savannah, Georgia, a dining establishment that should be on everyone’s bucket list.

But I missed my family.

On my first day back, TG had a little friend come over after school for a playdate. On the way home, she told this joke:

TG: Knock-knock! (giggles)

Little Friend: Who’s there?

TG: Banana! (more giggles)

LF: Banana who?

TG: Knock-knock! (stronger giggles)

LF: Who’s there?

TG: Aren’t you glad I didn’t say banana? (collapses in giggles)

Obviously we need to work on our joke-telling. Tomorrow I will fill you in on what I thought of Dan Brown’s latest opus.

It’s good to be back.