I was in the Trail Blazer with both kids (ages 6 and 4) in the back, and both dogs (a Carolina Shepherd and a Golden Lab puppy) in the very back. The kids had a plethora of toys and video game stuff and pillows and stuffed animals piled all around them. I had a ton of snack food (of which we surprisingly hardly ate) in the front with me. There were suitcases and coats piled around the dogs' crate. And finally, there was an ice chest and a couple other things strapped to one of those trailer hitch platforms. Not because we needed that stuff with the car, but because those last few things wouldn't fit in the moving truck.
Ah, yes. The moving truck. Dan had originally tried to get the 26-foot truck, but it wasn't available so we settled for reserving the 24-foot truck. We go to pick it up (after discovering that they had moved locations and didn't bother to update their address) and there was a 26-footer there that they rented to us for no additional charge! And thank god. We totally would have had to have rented a pull-behind trailer or something otherwise, because every last square inch of that truck was full. And we were even leaving behind the refrigerator and washer and dryer! So Dan was driving the truck, and his companion was the cat. And I say companion in the very loosest of definitions. She was in a tiny carrier, and meowed for hours. It was literally her first time in a carrier, and the last time she traveled in a car was to the vet to get fixed. Our dogs' vet recommended Benedryl to calm some pet nerves, but that did no good whatsoever. All it did was traumatize me (because the only way she'd take the pill was for me to just force-feed it to her) and make her drool cat snot for about an hour.
The puppy wasn't much better ... he gets anxiety in the car as well, and his comes out as horrible yelping (like someone is trying to kill him) and drooling. Like.A.Faucet. At the first stop, he was soaking wet from his chin, to half-way down his belly, and the entirety of his front legs. But at least that was temporary. He did calm down after a while and did much better the rest of the trip (unlike the cat). The crate they were in, however, rattled the whole drive. THE WHOLE DRIVE. I even stopped three times in the first two hours trying to wedge blankets and towels around it to get it to shut up. But alas, it did not.
And then there was the DVD player. It was a wonderful Christmas gift for the kids four years ago, but it's now four years old, and my SUV is nine-years-old and not exactly the smoothest ride anymore. Every time I hit the slightest bump (or a kid looked at it wrong), it would skip back to the beginning of the disc. Not the beginning of the movie, mind you - the beginning of the disc. The kids watched (and I listened to) the same five previews before Despicable Me 2 about seven times, and never actually got to the end of the movie. I thought maybe if the boy held it (the girl's could stay strapped to the headrest - one player, two screens) ... but no. I don't know why I thought a 6-year-old could stay still for that long. So I held it myself. In my lap, with the DVD case on top of the screen so I wouldn't be tempted to actually watch it while I was driving (and believe me ... I was tempted). That actually worked for an entire movie! Then we had to stop and pay a toll and I became increasingly paranoid about how it would look for me to be holding a DVD screen while driving. I finally got the brilliant idea to put a pillow on the boy's lap, and the DVD player on the pillow (all the while instructing him to NOT touch it).
We finally, FINALLY make it to Hays, Kansas, where we're going to stay the night. What took Dan nine hours when it was just him in his car, took us over twelve hours. The kids fall asleep instantaneously. I finally get a shower, and then for some reason, can't sleep. Part of the problem is the puppy. He'd been cooped up in the crate in the car all day with only a few stops so he was Awake with a capital A. Finally at 3:30am I had had enough (that is, I yelled at the dog and burst into tears), and my wonderful husband tried his best to calm the puppy so I could get some sleep. By the time the kids got up in the morning, I had slept maybe three hours, but was otherwise feeling fine.
Day two of the drive went much, much better. Except for the fact that it was boring. There is nothing even remotely interesting in Kansas, or the East half of Colorado, for that matter. I found myself wondering how in the world people made that same trek on foot and in covered wagons not that long ago.
I also started thinking about the time change. I was born in Oklahoma, so I was born in the Central Time Zone. I have lived in Colorado before, and even New Mexico for a short while, but each time moved back to somewhere in the Central Time Zone (Dallas or Little Rock). So, essentially, I was borrowing an hour each time I lived there, and had to return it upon leaving.
But this time I don't intend to leave. This hour I'm gaining is mine. MINE! I am not giving it back.
And when we gained that hour, we passed this sign that always made me smile.
At the first sight of the Rocky Mountains, I started to get giddy. When we got to Denver and could REALLY see the mountains, I started to get excited. When we took the exit off of I-70 onto Evergreen Parkway, I burst into tears.
I was finally home.
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