Vacation Wrap

We've been home for a few days unwinding from such a relaxing vacation. When you get this rested, it's hard to get moving again!!!

I know everyone wants to hear about the 10 hour drive home right?! Well, it started out amazingly well. We got out of the condo 45 minutes early by my timetable, 15 minutes early by Mike's. It was 9:15 a.m. and checkout was at 10 a.m. Indy and I even had time for poptarts and honeydew melon. So we weren't hungry. But as it seems to happen more often than not lately, the right hand and left hand, are doing totally different things. Apparently, the right hand mentioned (maybe more than once during the week) that one of the restuarant's we went to served breakfast. But then she ate poptarts and knowing the left hand, she figured he would just want to hit the road and get an early start. But no, the left hand pulled into the parking lot a mere 3 minutes into our journey. It was enough time for Mariah to explode in the backseat and it took her and Taryn and good 5 minutes to extract themselves from the car. Even though I was bummed I couldn't enjoy the bfast special, I thought it was sweet of Mike to stop. Gib of course voted very enthusiastically for food!

While in the restaurant, Mariah and Taryn were wild, and I mean wild happy, happy, happy children. Very excited, very loud. So when this (what's the PC term these days?) dwarf guy walks behind Mariah while she and Taryn are shouting about nothing in particular, Mariah opened her mouth and what came out? "Wow! I'm even taller than the midget!" Really loud. I'm pretty sure everyone in a 4 table vicinity heard it. I gasped and threw my hand over my mouth. Taryn did the exact same thing to hers which was kind of funny. And a dreadful silence descended on our table. No more happy children. Tears filled Mariah's eyes. And that's what happens when you take wild ADD and ADHD children out to breakfast before the meds kick in.

I learned that it is infinitely better to leave at 3 am than at 10 am. Ugh. It felt twice as long. Mike and Indy hogged the driving again. I only drove once, they took the rest. Buggage on the window all the way home.

We got stuck in a gas line very reminiscent of the 70's. Apparently there was a billboard advertising this great price so every motorist on the freaking freeway went there. We got stuck in the stupid line of stupid people who don't know what side their tank is on and have to make a u-turn to fill up but can't because there's a million cars in screwy lines snaking around everywhere. Then the pumps starting dripping gas into the tanks rather than pumping. It took forever and I mean forever, for the car in front of us leave. We drove right out behind it and over to another gas station where there wasn't a soul in sight. It cost us $3.00 more, but I say, well worth it!!! The bathroom was scary as heck and I was really sorry I had car duty the 20 minutes we were at the other place and Mike and Gib were inside getting travelling snacks and standing in a very long line to pay.

We made good time home. Didn't stop for food again, except once unintentionally when we stopped for gas. Indy went in first for the restroom, walked right back out, shaking her head NO! at me. I yelled for Mariah and we hightailed it out of there no questions asked. After we were clear of the door, I asked, "Bad?!" and she explained it was way too creepy for words, that somebody might possibly have been murdered back there it was so creepy. So we walked across the way to Hardee's. Now I can't just go in and use the restroom without buying anything if it's not a gas station. So the older girls and I ordered fries. Gib and Mariah got shakes and burgers. Unfortunately, it was somebody's first day on the shake machine. 20 minutes later, we had two pitiful examples of shakes. So that was dinner. Had we known, we would have all gone for the dollar burgers, but we didn't and we ended up never stopping again.

Grammy was glad to see us and we were happy to be home. Our cats were glad to see us. Especially my big fluffy guy. He's still following me around more closely than ever. And I have a terrible admission to make: I called every night while we were gone to check up on him. Oh, I made it look like I was checking in on mom, but I was really checking in on my cat. We love each other THAT much!!!