Road Trip!

We did it again!  You won't offend me by saying I'm crazy - I already know it.  We chose to drive from MN to MI for our (National Lampoon's) Christmas Vacation.  This time, with a DVD player THAT WORKS!  What a difference!

All was going well....we were packed and ready to go when I discovered our first, shall I say, obstacle: a dead battery!  The luggage was being loaded, the babies were being readied, Hubs was making last minute business calls because Road Trip Day was, after all, a weekday (horrors!), when...dun-dun-dun.

Thankfully, Hubs was able to jump it and we taxied down the runway backed out of the driveway with at 30 minute delay 30 minutes late.  But there was a traffic jam and flashing lights at our neighborhood's exit.  Rather than take the long-cut to Jimmy John's, which was out of the way anyhow, we decided to go to Quizno's.

NOPE!  Quizno's is closed!  As in, no longer in business.  Okay....doesn't that new Subway have a drive through?

Nope!  But it IS open, and we can get food....

6:18pm, 48 minutes past our departure time, we rolled out of our city.

Garmin said we'd have a 6:30 AM arrival.  I hope Lady Garmin's optimism rubs off on me.  Or her persistence.

The boys were happy, though, because we rigged up the DVD player with a Baby (Crack) Einstein movie and we flew over the Wisconsin border, readying ourselves with Caribou coffee and Diet Coke.

About the time the boys were passed out and we had consumed massive quantities of caffeine, oh, say 9 pm, we were flying along I-90 when the entire eastbound lane came to a crawl.  What's going on?  It had begun to sprinkle, but we didn't think much of it.  Oh, an accident.  That's too bad.  But why are they diverting us off the highway?

At the Kwik Trip, we top off the tank and take turns using the restroom.  What?!  They closed I-90 because of too many accidents?!

That was FREEZING DRIZZLE we were driving through.  Ohh....

While we CRAWLED along tiny Wisconsin towns for 9 miles to the next on-rampI(and it WAS getting worse outside), I made phone calls to make reservations at a Madison hotel where we could use Hubs' well-earned points (free hotel!  Something's going right!) We were greeted by the sight of a semi/minivan accident being cleaned up.  It didn't look too good, so that's when we started praying.

And praying.  More accidents, including semi-trucks on their sides, were seen between Kwik Trip town and our Madison hotel.  Finally, finally, we made it!

The boys were SO funny when we removed them from the warm, dark, cocoon of our van and carried them through the brilliantly lit and decorated lobby.  Oh, oh! They both tried to press the elevator buttons, and LORD HAVE MERCY!  They discovered the light switches were only 3 feet off the floor in our room.

The 3 light switches in our suite entertained them until Daddy showed up with our luggage...ON A CART! (Oh, yeah, that was something else positive - unexpectedly staying in a hotel with 3 suitcases of luggage - full of clean clothes!  Believe me, that doesn't happen!)

So, at midnight, here's what we were doing in the hallway:

It made up for all of the obstacles we'd encountered all evening!  And for the not-falling-to-sleep-until-2:30-am bit, either!

P.S. The second, and longest, half of the trip, all day Wednesday, went extraordinarily, and Praise-the-Lord! boringly well and is not worth blogging about except for bragging on Super Hubby for being such a fabulous driver and my boys for being such fantastic DVD and semi-truck watchers.