We took our summer vacation to Grandpa Brent and Grandma Jeanne’s home in Southern California. It is always fun visiting them. I can’t say I enjoyed the drive very much in my pregnant state, but it wasn’t unbearable.
Ricky went to a day camp at the local Nature Center the day we wanted to leave, so we didn’t head out until he got home – a bit after 4 pm. Our plan was to just drive as far as we could and then spend the night. Kevin and I weren’t really expecting to get too far because our boys just don’t sleep in the car and, in the past, that has lead to cranky late night driving. Imagine our surprise when ALL FOUR fell asleep! Totally asleep … snoring asleep … occasionally whimpering because a car seat isn’t the most comfortable way to sleep, but still asleep! It was like a miracle!
Because of that miracle, we made it to Mesquite in our drive before Kevin and I decided we wanted to sleep. The boys were so asleep, it was hard to get them awake so we could go into the hotel. Even more of a miracle was that they went right back to sleep after we settled in our room! The stars must have been aligned right or something, but it was delightful.
We headed out the next morning, expecting to get to Kevin’s folks about lunch time.
We were mid-desert, without a pit stop in sight, when Billy announced he had to go to the bathroom … BAD! There was a truck pull off up ahead, so Kevin pulled over.
My boys are not used to going to the bathroom anywhere but a toilet. I’m kind of happy about this. We know lots of boys who have no problem “marking their territory” other places, but that just isn’t something we’ve encouraged. So for Billy (and Ricky who decided he needed to go too) to just go in this middle of nowhere pull-off was a hard thing. Performance anxiety is probably a good description.
Or maybe they were just being considerate. As Kevin is trying to encourage them by saying “See how far you can shoot!” Ricky countered with, “I don’t think animals would appreciate us peeing on their habitat!” Meanwhile, Momma is cracking up in the suburban about the whole thing!
We seemed to be doing well in our traveling until we got to Baker, CA. I started getting hot. Kevin is good at turning the A/C off for hills and making sure we don’t overheat, but I was hot and asked him if we could have the air on. He turned it on and I just got more hot.
Sometime before Baker somewhere, we lost the belt on our air conditioning. It was a very hot and uncomfortable ride to Barstow where we hoped someone could help us. It may have only been a couple of hours without A/C, but it was about noon and the temperature outside was 115* and I was pregnant. Bless those people (read: crazies) who have done and still do that drive without air conditioning!
In Barstow, with bright red faces and cranky dispositions, Kevin dropped the kids and I off at Walmart and went to find someone to help. It wasn’t a very big Walmart. It was a very long hour and a half. We looked at the fish and shopped around for some personal fans … just in case the A/C wasn’t really fixed.
Kevin found a guy who would fix it ASAP and he tried. But it was only a temporary fix-we needed a whole new unit. It did make the last couple of hours of our drive bearable. Thankfully, Grandpa Brent’s mechanic was able to fix us up in time to head home with a new air conditioning unit that works fabulously!