So road trips are always good blog material.... Let me share one with you!
Let me start by saying my husband is a very spontaneous and generous man. It's part of what I love about him, so when he wanted to drive to Austin this season to see the infamous Trail of Lights, I was happy to comply, and we waited for the ideal opportunity....but since there has been so much illness in the family the last two weeks, that opportunity didn't come until yesterday, when my mom took Baby Bear overnight. And so we jumped, and quickly strapped the Bean into the Silver Rocket and were on our way. Ok ok ok.....those of you with kids aren't buying it. Of course it was more like this: wait for the kids to wake up from their atypically long naps..... Find out the Big One didn't nap but has been unceremoniously destroying his room the whole time.... Chase down and put pants on said kiddos...And with a one-year old, it would be easier to put pants on a cat..... Strap kiddos in the car....make eight more trips back and forth from house to car....walk and corral the dogs....feed the cat...thank our lucky stars the baby didn't mess up his fresh diaper....nevermind....well played, Murphy, well played....unstrap and change baby....restuff him into pants. Ok, you get the idea.
Twenty minutes later.
I go to plug in the Christmas lights, only to realize something is seriously amiss..... Not only are we missing another extension chord, but we are also missing the Santa Dalmatian that tied the whole display together. So after a heated call to the neighborhood PD, we are finally, tediously, on our way.... To my mom's. To drop off Baby Bear. It's 4 o'clock and we aren't even out of town yet. But no worries! The magical Trail of Lights awaits and we are all merry with our Trans-Siberian Orchestra theme music.
5:00pm A quick dinner at Sonic. Tyler and I congratulate ourselves for a smooth trip so far with a chili cheese coney and a bathroom break.
6:15pm Tyler slams on the breaks as he almost misses the last lone gas station within a 15 mile radius... As we thank our lucky stars for the noisy gas gauge light, Tyler realizes while filling up that the car key is missing. Now, since his car is the kind that starts when the key is near the car, we are encouraged by the rumble of the engine. And so ensues the only kind of turning your car upside down that occurs in a frantic, possibly game changing, God bargaining key search.... In the middle of nowhere.... three quarters of the way to our destination. So now that the car is cleaned out....I begin to mentally formulate Plans B and Plans C.
Plan B: Because we have no idea where the keys are, we know that we may not be able to restart the car (in the event the key was tossed in the Valero trash by the car, for example) once the engine is killed, one possible scenario plays out like this- We finish our drive to Austin, don't cut the engine when we get there, leaving one adult in the car while Bean and the remaining adult enjoy the Trail of Lights and then drive the three-and a half hours home (to the spare key) without stopping to cut the engine. Surely this Trail of Lights would just be an hour tops. You have to realize we country folk are envisioning something like .... Well.... A cornfield with lights to be honest. An hours of waiting in the Park Parking lot with a view of the legendary lights. Doesn't sounds so bad, right? I consciously prepare myself for this kid-pleasing scenario.
Plan C: We cut our losses and head home with a disappointed and possibly screaming Bean-man.
In true Tyler fashion, he decides to take one last futile look before resorting to either plan - which he undoubtedly has parallely conjured in his own mind. Nothing.
I go to strap Noah in, breathing defeat and girding myself for the long wait in the parking lot (plan
B).....and somehow, my eyes stumble upon the smallest glint of a key ring in a crevice between the
center console and the driver's chair. THANK YOU, JESUS!!!
7:00pm On our way once more, and feeling endorsed by the Powers that Be, we finish the remaining quarter and pull into Austin, triumphant and rejuvenated over the outcome of our key fiasco.
Cue Vegas Strip style traffic.
We all know how traffic makes us react after a long drive. Skip ahead.
8:15pm We are literally three blocks from where we were an hour ago. Defeated, but not dispirited, we park in some extremely safe looking gypsy back alley in the heart of town. And walk the final mile and a half the the park. We should have read the warning signs (the traffic.....the hoards of people.....the makeshift Event Parking) but we were in denial, telling ourselves there must be some other event in the vicinity that same moment. Wrong-O. So much for my corn field mental picture. Think more in terms of Astro's game with only one parking lot and only one ball park entrance. Got it? Good.
8:30pm We cram ourselves into Zilker Park.... Literally some poor college student with a mic wavers
out the lyrics for We Wish You A Merry Christmas (eyes glued to the paper.... Which I found a tad eyebrow raising) to entertain the one hundred thousand people and their rug rats while squeeze-chuting into the overhanging light tunnel entrance. I cannot even describe the amount of humanity in this small space. A somewhat merry bunch regardless, but as the march wore on, it became a less merry clamor for the square foot of light visibility. Noah, on Dad's shoulders, had the only good seat in the house. People .... It took thirty minutes to make it ten feet. I.cannot.make.this.stuff.up.
After an hour of pressing cheeks (all kinds) with humanity on all sides, and having only seen three light scenarios, DH and I non-verbally agree to take off ...off the trail and split for the exit, snagging a hot cocoa and a light sword on the way through the chain link perimeter. At least Noah is happy. And I, his cup holder, decide to test his cocoa to be sure it is adequately cooled, and promptly dump half of the
sticky, scalding material down the front of my shirt. Having somehow held it together this whole
time, this last straw of steam and syrupy processed liquid sugar dripping onto the pavement from my
once dry shirt unleashes the barbaric war cry I've been holding back for hours. More than a few fellow cattle bolting to the exit stare.
I'm fine. We are leaving.
Amazingly, we found the car right away,
Shove Noah into his footies,
And make a break for 290.
By the way, have you ever shoved an almost four year old, high on sugar, adrenaline, and lack of sleep , who refuses to stand into a pair of footie pajamas while trying to keep him out of a puddle of garbage and his own urine? I'm sure we leave no shortage of entertainment for those around us.
10:30pm We finally make it out of Austin. I make a poor attempt to remove the now crusty cocoa from my limp locks, and give up on the hope of a dry shirt, bearing down for the long, wet drive home. Noah has finally succumbed to his sugar crash and lack of nap..... Shortly followed by DH who has to leave for work by 4am.
So as I drive blasting my Neil Diamond, and expelling lungfuls of harmoniousness intended to keep me awake, it luckily has the opposite effect on the sleeping beauties in the cab.
No matter....
1:30am I'm welcomed by the warm glow of our home's Christmas lights..... minus a Santa Dog. And Tyler got his four hours of sleep (that's two in the car, and two in the bed). Ahh.... the things we do for our kids, right? The least Bean-man could have done was slept in as a small "Thank you." Yeah, I know. Stupid idea. He thought it was a stupid idea too.
To say "Never again" seems moot at this point.
And whoever said it was "Worth the drive" needs to be reckoned with.
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