Day 1: The Last Leg of Our Journey

Day 1 - geography lesson
Originally uploaded by radioflyer007

Well, today we began the last part of our migration to Southern Cal - a journey that began in January 2007 when we first started the process of contacting realtors to sell our Green House.

SAYING GOOD-BYE
We said our most difficult good-byes this morning. My sister and her family (with two young boys) came over to my mom’s place where we had been living for the past few weeks. ‘Shroom and Lolli had seen their 4-yr old and 1-yr old (“Juicy Boy” as we call the little guy) cousins almost every day since we’ve shacked up with my parents after we sold our Green House. Yes, it was hard to say good-bye and tears were shed. It still doesn't quite seem real to me that we're leaving . . .

THE BLACK HAWK
With the help of my brother-in-law and father, Air Boss packed up the Black Hawk. It was like playing 3-D Tetris (for you older folks like me, I’m sure you’ve wasted many productive hours playing this popular ‘90’s computer game). All in all, everything fit with even a bit of room to spare. And I'm happy to report that even with the sluggish acceleration and the AC running, the Black Hawk managed to crank out close to 25 mpg.

THE KIDS
Well, for those of you wondering how long it would take before the kids would break down and ask "are we almost there yet?", it took 1 hour and 45 minutes. It was 'Shroom. They thought we were going to spend tonight in a hotel in LA. Oh dear - the geography lessons aren't quite sticking. Lolli has been particularly challenging for me. Her incessant talking, questions, and "mommy, mommy, mommy!" have left me rather short-tempered. The girl is always talking! Man was I glad when the afternoon sleepies won her over. For those of you ever considering taking your kids on a looong road trip, ask me in a few days. There were parts in the day where I wondered if we were going to make it through this first day.

THE FISH
Omigee is one unhappy fish on a hunger strike. The blue guy hasn't eaten anything all day. I've feed him on three separate ocassions today and eventually had to scoop out the soggy food pellets that he's refused. I've even "upgraded" his hotel accommodations from a one-star Motel 6 (Dunkin Donuts large ice coffee cup) to a two-star Econolodge (the original container he came home from the pet store and then a large disposable Ziploc plastic container). I'll have to let you know how long this hunger strike goes . . .

Well, as you can see, Lolli and 'Shroom will track our driving progess at the end of each day by placing little stickers along our route. They now know the states of Connecticut, New York, and Pennsylvania. Time for this tired momma to go to bed.

Until next time, ciao!

Blackhawk Pack List

Seriously Overloaded Car 1
Originally uploaded by blankstrider

- 'Shroom's & Lolli's suitcase (with 9 pairs of everything)

- Air Boss's duffle with work clothes (once we're on the road, who cares if the Dockers get all wrinkled!)

- Air Boss's & my suitcase (with 9 pairs of everything)

- two more duffles (don't know what's in 'em but must be worth shoving in the mini-van)

- total of five backpacks (one for each kid, one with laptop, one with camera, and one doubling as my purse)

- two portable file boxes (one actually filled with shoes)

- two travel "briefcases" (filled with important stuff like crayons, color books, stickers, and markers)

- Air Boss's toolbox (just in case we can't find the other one that is on the moving truck)

- a 17" LCD monitor (in case the kids want to watch DVD's on a larger screen . . . ha, like that's the real reason why it's in the van)

- two fishing rods (in case we have a hard time finding the Golden Arches . . . we can always resort to finding our dinner)

- wedding attire (including shoes) for the entire family

- two coolers to fit: a case of water, a case of drink boxes, two 12-packs of soda, and a case of soymilk (whatever doesn't fit into the coolers, we'll have to stuff into the 14 cup holders in the Blackhawk)

- a box of miscellanous stuff (like snacks, dryer sheets (!?!), baby wipes, wet Swiffers, and who knows what else)

- a bag of 8 pink-wrapped gifts (for Lolli to unwrap one each day on the road), 8 blue-wrapped gifts (for 'Shroom to unwrap one each day on the road), and 10 red-wrapped gifts for both to unwrap for each eay (thank you Laurie and Juliette for your thoughtfulness!)

- 2.5 gallon fish tank with all the accessories (minus the water) . . . oh, and the little blue guy, Omigee (he's going to blog about the adventure as well)

- about 10 lbs of AAA guidebooks and corresponding maps

- half a dozen pocket packs of tissues in case we need to smell the roses (yeah, that's right) on the side of the road

- a not-even-half-filled 60GB iPod jammed with podcast sermons, books on CD's, the ENTIRE bible, too many kiddie songs to count, and every CD we own

- a GPS, a radar detector, two cell phone chargers, a laptop AC power inverter, and a request to Toyota to make mini-vans with AT LEAST six power outlets

Yup . . . I think we'll get about 12 miles to the gallon . . . 6 if we run the air conditioner.

[Thanks to Blankstrider for the awesome photo!]

Long checklists, late nights, and sad good-byes

I guess the title sums it up. With four days left before we pack up the Blackhawk (our family mini-van which is really dark grey), Air Boss, 'Shroom, Lolli and I have been busy saying good-bye to our family and friends.

Sprinkled with errands around Watertown (playing catch-up with doctor's appointments, DMV), Cambridge (car tune up), Waltham (new tires), Framingham (pet store visit to figure out how to safely transport Omigee across 13 states), our last 1-2 weeks here in the Boston area have been busy.

'Shroom and Lolli have been great - they've been schlepped all around town with us and understandably getting cranky with the lack of sleep. We wake them up in the morning, force them to take short (but not very satisfying) naps in the car, and then keep them up late at night. Today is our "off" day (i.e. I need time to figure out how much stuff will actually fit in the Blackhawk without scraping the exhaust pipe on the road).

Will need to follow-up on the "pack list" for the car ...