The Long Trip Home

The Tom-Tom is now using Steve Irwin’s voice (the Crocodile Hunter). “Turn left, and make your way onto the most dangerous motorway in the World.”

Watching the Pink Panther DVD for the fifth time on the trip, I hear Steve announce that he “has traveled some pretty amazing and dangerous places, but that was by far the most dangerours trip I ever been on. You have reached your destination, mate.”

Looking out my window, I see Krista has navigated us to a Georgia peach tree farm. We stop to buy peanuts, peach cobbler, butter-peacan ice cream, and (of course) fresh peaches. Alleluia, thank the Lord, we can eat in the car!

Punch drunk from a cruise, four days at Disney parks, and two water parks our family is finally headed home. The kids are still over extended and refuse to sleep. Meanwhile, Krista and I can’t think of anything else but sleeping. Krista talks 2 ½ hours with Kendra (providing me much fodder for blog), and finally I interrupt, “Its 10 o’clock in some time zone, let’s pull over and call it a night.”

I command Krista to end her conversation with Kendra, and start navigating towards a Holiday, Comfort, Ramada, or Hampton Inn. Krista hangs up the phone, which is now nuclear with the amount of heat it is radiating after its long use. She puts down her phone, and picks up my phone calling the number to the hotel.

Suddenly, Krista’s phone rings. “Damn, that Kendra,” I think to myself. I pick up Krista’s phone, “Hello.”

Laughing from Kendra -- “She must be reading my blog,” I think egotistically to myself.

“Hello?”

No answer. I lean over to Krista, covering the phone. “I think she thinks I am really mad.”

"Hello?”

More laughing from Kendra. As I talk, I can hear my voice echoing in the background. Man, is Krista’s phone really bad or what?

Wait a minute; this isn’t Kendra – “Krista, you just called your own cell phone from my phone – WE ARE TALKING TO EACH OTHER.”

Punch drunk we begin a laugh for the next twenty minutes. My eyes are welling up with tears, and Krista’s stomach hurts. “Do you think this will be just as funny tomorrow?” Not really.

At night, we stay up way too late watching the Olympics. Our dreams of sleeping in are shattered when (for the third time on our trip), the previous guest has scheduled the TV to turn on automatically early in the morning.

Our now communal kennel cough is productive. That’s what the pharmacist at the local Publix told me – ‘productive’ meaning to produce mucus. This is best exemplified in Devin’s morning ritual of emptying half her head of snot into seven tissues and handing them to Ian to throw away. Now I am not only sleep deprived, but groggy from too much cough medicine.

On the second day of the trip, the boys are overcome with intense urges to use the bathroom. Twelve minutes from our last rest stop, Nolan announces he has to pee (thank God it’s not the dreaded three hour poop routine). Saving all the gory details for our personal one-on-one’s, Nolan and Ian pee a total of five times into a 32 ounce cup – nearly filling it up. We call it our warm, freshly-made lemonade.

We are home now and have plenty of fond memories. Unfortunately, being August 15th, birthday month is only half over. Love to all, hope to see you soon.