Texas Trip

So I have been putting this off because frankly I wish I hadn't of gone. It was a very stressful trip.

We left on a Thurs. early morning, stopped by my mom's house to pick up a couple things, then stopped by my mother in laws house to drop off Rocko. The first day went by very uneventfully. We made to the hotel at a semi-decent time. Our first stop was just south of Sacramento.

Here is where things went wrong, I really shouldn't have planned to drive the whole 3,000 miles in 3 days. So not only was I set to drive (non-stop) 12 hours this day, I discovered that my a/c was broken. Today I was driving through southern California and Arizona. It was not fun. It probably took closer to 14 miserable sweaty hours before we made it to our hotel for the night.

This was set to be the longest driving day. Driving to Texas, through New Mexico, with no a/c. It took close to 16 hours, in a car with three kids. Now to make matters worse I have now driven through two time zones so it is two hours later than my clock says when we arrive. So instead of two in the morning it's four in the morning.

Our first day in Texas with the hubby was great. We went to the Kemah boardwalk and road rides all day. They had live music and street performers. Kenzie was the most adventurous but unfortunately his height doesn't match. He couldn't go on a lot of the rides that he wanted to. And I can't find any of the pictures on the computer so sorry.

Our second day in Texas, hubby has to work some in the morning so the kids and I were planning on trying to find a park to play at. On the way to the gas station Journey threw up all over himself, his carseat, the back seat of the van. Yah for projectile vomit! So instead of doing anything fun I spent the day doing laundry and holding a sick boy. Watched a Ben-10 marathon, not much into cartoons but Journey loves it. Hubby took the kids to help clean out the van.

I cannot even remember what we did the next day. I am so tired and miserable, it started raining. I was just wishing that I had stayed home. We had planned on going to NASA but didn't make it with sick kid and rain.

Our last day in Texas we head down to Galveston, check out the hurricane damage and play all day at the beach. The water is so much warmer than the Pacific. It's lukewarm. The water and sand feel a little greasy, oily. When we left the beach my car was covered with a film and I felt like I needed a serious bath.

I gave myself an extra day driving home so we left early the next morning. The drive was actually really great. Everyone behaved and the weather was fine. We arrived in Amarillo at about 7. When I arrived there I was informed that they were expecting a blizzard. It was 73 degrees out so excuse me if I didn't believe them.

Wouldn't you know they got like a foot of snow, 40 mile an hour winds, yeah we were stuck. They closed down all the highways. Huge pileups, accidents all over the place. Great! It is just my luck so far with this trip that I would get stuck in a freak blizzard.

So we wait a day at our hotel, luckily it had an indoor pool. They had a reseraunt in the hotel also but truthfully if I had an option I would have gone somewhere else. The service was awful, they didn't even bring us enough silverware for everyone. The food was even worse.

We started out the next day driving slowly through the ice and snow. It wasn't bad, I've dealt with worse when we lived in Sunriver. By the time we made it to the New Mexico border it had basically cleared up. We made it to our hotel in fine time.

Today we planned on going to the Grand Canyon. Which added an extra two hours to my drive that day but it was worth it. It's just amazing. Mother Nature doesn't like me though. It was freezing cold and windy. The kids got out of the van, walked up to the railing, took a couple pictures and then ran back to the car. They were too cold.

Because of our detour the drive was extra long. Wouldn't you know it, Mckenzie got sick. This time he gave me some warning and I had time to dump out my cd's and give him the box to vomit in. Poor boy. We couldn't stop and let him rest. We finally made it to our hotel at about 11 that night.

Then our last day of driving! I let the kids sleep in, Kenzie needed it. Then breakfast, I love Holiday Inn Express!, and on the road yet again. Begining to feel like a Willy Nelson song here. Kenzie didn't get sick again and things went well.

We had planned on stopping at the Oregon Vortex. It doesn't say from the highway what the hours were but it did say days. It was open that day so we decided to try it. It's way off the beaten path and by the time we got to a sign that said hours we had ten minutes to closing. I thought okay it can't be that much farther down this road we'll get there just in time for the last tour of the day. No we go there at 4:06, yes 6 minutes late. I wasted close to 40 minutes on that detour. But it's not too far from our house that we can't make the trip any old day.

We were so glad to get home. Rocko was so happy to see us. Then the next day I got sick. Spent all night and into the next day vomiting. Then another couple days woozy and weak.

Total miles close to 6,000. Two sick children, one sick mom. Spent close to $1,000 with gas and everything. Wish I would have stayed home.