The Vacation, Part 1: Driving there

We returned a couple of days ago from another fabulous vacation.  How I love to travel!  My boys are such good travelers that it makes it pretty easy, too.  This time we headed to Southern California to spend some time with Kevin’s folks and with Mickey Mouse.

We have learned to not expect a lot of sleeping to happen in our car on road trips.  Pretty much none.  It took us about 12 hours to drive to Kevin’s parents’ home and in that time, Rusty slept for about 45 minutes and Tommy for an hour.  That was it.  It is a good thing they are good travelers or else we probably wouldn’t venture far!

We hadn’t been on the road long before a pit stop was necessary (*cough* by Kevin *cough*) and the trend was begun.  We were stopping for restrooms about every two hours.  It wasn’t bad, but did lengthen the trip a bit.  Most of our stops were at gas stations or fast food places, but we did break for lunch at one of the rest stops along the way.  This one had a wooded area right next to the picnic tables and the boys were anxious to explore.  We complied.

There were acorn caps to collect.  A bird nest to put back in the tree (because, obviously the birds did not want their nest on the ground).

Short little trails to explore.

And little ants that, for some reason, only crawled all over Kevin.

Of course, there was lots of talking, reading, movie watching, video game playing, coloring, and a few new toys to play with along the way.  My favorite conversation to overhear had to do with Abraham Lincoln.  I don’t know why Ricky was telling Billy about him – I don’t even pretend to always follow their conversations.  But the description Ricky gave had me wondering,

“Lincoln was a very tall and skinny man.  He was a very important prophet…he was president.  Either of the World or the USA, I don’t remember which.”

We arrived at Grandpa Brent and Grandma Jeanne’s in time for a late dinner and lots of hugs and welcomes.

The vacation was off to a great start!