That Holiday Feeling

Somewhere in Ohio, at a gas station with the world's scariest bathroom. Apparently times are hard in Ohio, where they've had to sell all their remaining letter "E"s in order to balance the budget. What happens when they run out of the letter "F"? How will anyone be able to swear properly?

(PS. We just has a huge snowstorm and its three days before Christmas, so I will now blog about Thanksgiving! Most blogs are cutting edge and timely. Mine not so much.)

It was that time of year again. When we pack up the family truckster, the dog, two kids and five hundred random bags of clothes, toys, snacks, and things and hit the road. I call it the Midwest Trifecta. Three states, one week. Thirty Eight hours in a car. Yes. Thirty Eight. That is a day and a half. Technically two hours MORE than a day and a half. It’s enough to make a person try one of those new fangled contraptions, I think they are called, “airplanes”.

That is Alexander behind his nah-nah. And no, we have no idea why its called a nah nah, but it is.


Joe Cool lives.

Destination: Mom- somewhere in southern IL outside of St.Louis, MO.

At the St. Louis Zoo

Drive Day 1: 9.5 hours; Dayton, OH: This is by far the best part of the trip for driving. For one thing, you can pretty much find a Starbucks anywhere along the way. Yes, even in a state with no letter “E”s they at least had Starbucks to keep a weary traveler caffeinated. And believe it or not, it is a relatively scenic drive too. Maryland and Pennsylvania are semi-mountainous and have charming looking old farms with old stone farm houses etc. There is even a really cool tunnel to go through in PA.

Fun in a wagon at Mom's

OH is entertaining. If you are awake, while driving through Ohio you will notice that the number of Adult book stores is proportionate to the number of churches you see along the highway. This is purely, an anecdotal observation, backed up with no facts whatsoever, but its true. Its sort of like ying and yang. One balances out the other. What cracks me up are the signs for the adult store. They proclaim proudly that “Truckers Welcome!” Really? I mean who else is going to stop there? Families with small children?

The churches I find the most fascinating because it is not obvious to the everyday traveler just exactly what denomination they are. They are not the standard, St. James Catholic Church, or Wesleyan Methodist, but typically something like “The Church of the Holy Light and Redeeming Nature of Christ our Lord/Gas 'n Go [free 10 commandment coffee cup with fill up! Collect all TEN!]” and are located in a structure that was never intended to be a church.

The Adult book stores are what I am most interested in. And not for the fine literature. In all my years of driving back and forth between points East to points Midwest, I’ve always wanted to check one of these places out. What exactly do they sell in there? What does it cost? What exactly is an Adult Novelty, a snow globe? I did notice on this trip that a lot of the places seemed to be closed. I guess these days with iPods, Kindle, mobile DVD players and the like, most truckers do not need to ever stop their truck to receive their adult entertainment, although one would need to leave the truck to buy the snow globe.

St. Louis Science Center to check out Dinosaurs. Waiting for their lunch of fried T Rex legs.

Drive Day 2: 6 hours – this is the part of the trip that tries men’s souls. It’s through Indiana and Illinois. I grew up here and can state with some authority that these two states are flat and boring. There are no other words to use to describe it. And worse yet, no place to get a decent cuppa joe. No Starbucks, or even a Dunkin’ Donuts. Weary travelers are reduced to drinking strange brown water from gas stations or McDonalds. I don’t care what Consumer Reports said about McDonald’s coffee– when you are a coffee snob, life is tough, at least on I-70, in Indiana and Illinois.

However, if you are into fresh venison, you are in the right place! For fun we began to keep track of the road kill.. It was, for the most part, and what we could discern at 70 miles per hour, deer. My favorite sight, was somewhere in IL, from the highway, I spotted three men in bright hunting orange grab in some one’s driveway. There were three dead deer hanging from hooks from the garage frame. My comment was, “why go shoot a deer when you can walk 100 yards to the highway and scoop up a couple of dead ones?” Because right there, on the side of the road, was dead deer number 13! I guess scooping them up off the highway would not be very sporting.

Drive Day 3: 8 hours; Destination: Dad’s Central Indiana
It’s about 5 hours from Mom’s to Dad’s. For normal people. That is, people without two small children and one neurotic dog. Every time we hit a rest stop to go to the bathroom it was not just a quick get out of the car, pee and hit the road. No. It was a major production. It took Eisenhower less time to plan the invastion of (and invade) Normandy than it took us to do our business. I never got to pee by myself it was always with two small boys who liked to: crawl around on the floor and check out what the person in the stall was doing next to us.

Uncle "Santa Claus" Bob and Alex having a moment

Dad and Alex having a moment

Alexander with his cousin Kylie, and Woody (also referred to as "Wee" by Alex). I have no idea why we have no photos of Ian at Dad's house. I am pretty sure he was there.

It should be noted here, that the boys were fabulous in the car. Many voices of doom warned us that traveling with children was impossible without a portable DVD player. Well, if the pioneers could do it without a DVD player by golly so could we! They were fine and were kept entertained with books, crayons, toys and the like. There were occasional outbursts of fussiness - and one complete outbreak of crankiness but that was me after 7 hours in a car and hitting rush hour traffic in Indianapolis. Don't these people know WE were on vacation? Geesh.

Drive Day 4: 3 hours; Destination Louisville KY….
Totally unremarkable. We stopped once at a rest stop that had a PLAYGROUND. There ought to be a law that every rest stop has a playground. Of course the equipment was wet and cold, but no one cared. The drive should have taken 2.5 hours, but the playground distracted us.

In Louisvile with someone NOT a relative.

Insert your own comment about a**es here. We are at some animal sancutary in Louisville started by an eccentric billionaire. The donkeys hang out in the parking lot and shake you down as you get out of your car. They want carrots, or else..

What can I say? Donkeys and little boys..Makes for a good ending eh? HA! GET IT? ENDING! HAR!

Drive Day 5: Homeward Bound; 12 hours
See Days 1 Drive for details, minus the enthusiasm for starting a trip or the patience. No photos available as it was ugly.