Thursday on the Road

When we left our home on Eglin AFB nearly a month ago, our mini-van was packed to the brim.

(Did I mention that when we bought this van, we fought it with every fiber of our being? We wanted a Pilot or something cool. At the time, we thought that we were still doing the China adoption and we just couldn’t figure out how to get three babies into anything smaller than a mini-van without throwing our backs out on a regular basis.)

(All that to say, we have realized the folly of our original line of thinking. Our mini-van is, well, the bomb, and I don’t know how we’d get a dog, two boys, two grown-ups, a double jogger, two pack-n-plays, two car seats, six suitcases, toys, food, and other bits of random “stuff” from Eglin to South Florida and then South Florida to Maryland without our handy dandy, uncool van.)

Sorry. Tangent. Refocusing.

Back to where I was.

Where was I?

Oh. So everything we wanted for the next four weeks of our lives was in our mini-van when we left Eglin. Our hitch carried a tow platform that was stacked as high as we could safely maneuver. In fact, JB preferred to do the majority of the driving to South Florida since “bottoming out” was a very real possibility that I didn’t feel quite comfortable dealing with nor did he feel quite comfortable watching me deal with it.

Thursday morning we loaded up the van and pulled out again. This time we were headed north and leaving my parents home with the first day’s goal being Savannah, GA. While the van was still a bit on the uncomfortably tight side of loaded, we definitely had lowered our “bottoming-out” factor.

While in South Florida we mailed nearly ten boxes to our APO Box in Turkey. Toys and blankets and toiletry items galore are probably waiting for us (or hopefully waiting for us) in a post office on Incirlik Air Force Base.

We also unloaded a lot of items that we weren’t intending to keep with us at all. Things like gas containers and paints and other items that we were not permitted to travel with overseas but that we just didn’t feel comfortable throwing away. Tara. Lesley. You’d be proud. My cheapness prevailed. Someone had to be able to use these items instead of us filling a landfill with them.

So. Thursday morning. My Mom took Scrubs for one last 5am walk. My Dad took him for one last Frisbee outing on the baseball field. JB got himself thoroughly drenched loading the van while I scoured under the sofas for every last matchbox car and story book I could find.

At 8am we said good bye. We had already said good bye to all of JB’s family on Wednesday. My brother and AD on Tuesday. Joan a week earlier and Bri the day prior. I tried my best not to cry. We really didn’t think that Isaac and Elijah needed to see people getting upset. I tried to hide my tears but found it a little bit impossible as our family circled up and my Dad prayed over each of us. For health. For safety. For peace.

We were excited. But we were sad. All rolled up into one big ball of emotion.

While Isaac is so much more verbal than Elijah, we have to wonder if Elijah isn’t just as aware as his big brother that things are a little “off.” Isaac speaks enough for both of them. He asks when we are going to go to the “parking lot” where the “airpanes” are so that we can get on our “airpane” and go to “Turdey.” He asks if we are going to get a rental car. (I’m not sure why.) He asks where his van is a few times each day. (He has also become obsessed with blinkers being on in the van and stopping at a red light and slowing down at a yellow light and that sort of thing. Railroad crossings too. But that’s a story for another day.) He asks every time we get in the van where we are going. He’s trying, in whatever way he can, to try and put his finger on where we actually live and when we are going to stop bee-bopping from place to place.

Yesterday as we pulled away from Grama Di and Papa, we explained to the boys that we were headed to a hotel in Georgia. Isaac called it the “new ‘tel” – his way of comparing it to our “new house.”

The drive went well. Fairly uneventful. We made two major stops and two additional minor stops. The second of our major stops was at a rest stop where there was a huge grassy area that I could play Frisbee with Scrubs while JB chased the boys and they all played with the new Lightning McQueen and Sherriff that Bri gave them on the last day she saw them. By the time we got into the van, everyone was exhausted making the end of the trip some of our best hours on the road.

One of our minor stops was KFC for lunch. We don’t think the boys had ever been to KFC. Elijah thought that big chunky fries were fantastic and chowed into them with his normal delight for all things food. Isaac on the other side kept saying, “Just want yellow fries.” He wasn’t impressed with our food choice whatsoever, and when he realized we weren’t getting fries like he was used to, he resorted to, “Just want ice cream.” Thank goodness my Mom had made some PB&J before we left. Isaac stuck to that.

Isaac is a fantastic traveler. He looks around, watches movies, reads books, plays with his cars, eats and drinks with next to zero complaining and no crying.

Elijah is a little less content. He is doing a lot of signs but still gets frustrated that we can’t understand him when he grunts or says the first half of a word. He also just doesn’t want to be in his seat. Overall, he does a decent job. I’d say he’s probably in the middle of the bell curve when it comes to spending hours on end strapped down in a car seat. But he makes it obvious he has other places he’d rather be.

Scrubs does pretty well. He cries for some unknown reason periodically and is forced to lay on the floorboard between the boys and our seats for most of the drive. The boys have grown frustrated with him if he sits up and blocks them from seeing out the window or watching their video. Elijah will yell at him and Isaac will say, “Bubby down!” over and over until he gives up and slips into a sleep position on the floorboard which we have padded down with blankets for him.

By 4:30pm, we had reached Savannah, Georgia. I’ve never been into the heart of Savannah before. What a quaint town. Such incredible personality and history. Beautiful parks, tons of restaurants, and swanky downtown hotels and apartments greet you at every turn down the shady city streets.

Too bad we didn’t have more time to spend driving around. We went straight to our hotel, The Thunderbird Inn, and got settled. Unfortunately, no matter how simple we tried to make it, we had to bring a ton of stuff into the room. The tow hitch needed to be unloaded and stored inside the van so that the items can be secured overnight.

Even more unfortunate was the fact that our room was on the second floor, right smack in the middle of the two staircases. And there was no elevator either. This meant that while I stayed up in the room with the boys and the dog, JB had to unload the suitcases and pack-n-plays and toy bag and food bags and bring them up the stairs. He then had to unload the hitch and move the stroller inside the van. It was quiet a process. And it was quite hot.

By the time the van was unloaded, the boys and I had thoroughly exhausted every book and car we had brought with us. We had moved the two rolling chairs to the side of the bed and were squatting on them (no standing allowed!) and doing belly flops onto the big king-sized bed. (Well, they were at least. I refrained. So did Scrubs as he was too preoccupied sniffing every corner of the place.)

The room was extremely small but, as promised on their website, quite “hip.” Very clean with a lot of personality. Just small. We played with our cars on the window unit and on the desk and let Scrubs drink his water in the tiny bathroom. We put our suitcases under the sink.

And then we had to think about dinner. We opted to not load everyone up and find a place to eat despite the fact that they had given us a list at the front desk of restaurants that catered to families with dogs. Instead, JB found a sushi restaurant for himself and grocery store for me and the boys. He brought a plate of fruit and some yogurt and a sandwich, and we fed the boys while they ran around us giggling and driving cars and throwing stuffed animals. Blueberry yogurt into the mouth on a moving target is something I’ve actually gotten quite good at.

That was followed up by baths for the little men and then, per Elijah’s request, bedtime. Our little ‘Lijah has no patience for staying awake when he is tired. He puts his hand to the side of his head, says “Ni-ni” and expects to be down in his bed within 60 seconds or less of his request. We put him in his bed even though we still had a lot to do in the room (get Isaac into bed, brush our teeth, take Scrubs to the bathroom, etc.) Elijah didn’t care. He was out in five minutes flat while the room was still a stir around him.

Isaac was another story. JB and I plopped down in our bed and each got a book out to read. Isaac opted to bounce around in his pack-n-play talking and giggling and making faces at us. He’d smoosh his nose on the netting of the pack-n-play and snort and laugh and take his socks off and want them back on and ask for a book and milk and anything else he could think of to get us up and over to where he was. We tried to stifle our laughs behind our books, but it was quite cute. And we were quite helpless. The room was too small for us to pretend we didn’t see him.

An hour later he finally gave up.

We were on the road this morning by seven. We are in the van now. I’m typing this blog on the laptop and will transfer it over to my site later … stay tuned. The adventure is bound to continue. And as always, writing about it is my pleasure, and outlet, and way to process everything that is going on.