Decorating

Grandpa

Grandpa, in Marc's parking lot: What's with all the politeness? It's Christmas. It's every man for himself!

(Note for future generations: He was joking, of course).

Pumpkins

Sarah: Look! Pumpkins! If we put it on the floor it makes candies!

Santa

Grandma: Sarah, do you know who Santa is?

Sarah: Yes, he brings us presents!

Grandma: And how does he get here?

Sarah: He goes around and around, and then he goes left, and that's how he gets here!

Around The House

Candy

Papa: Sarah can you share your piece of candy with Stephen?

Sarah: No, it's too hard-o!

(If you are confused, that is a cross of "hard" and "duro")

Behind The Chair

Stephen was playing with his ball in the living room when it rolled behind a big chair. He did not see it and was looking all over the living room for the ball.

Grandpa: Stephen, the ball is behind the chair.

Stephen (continues looking around the floor)

Grandpa: Stephen, your ball is behind the chair.


Stephen (continues looking on the floor)

Grandpa: Stephen, behind means on the other side. Your ball is on the other side of the chair.

Stephen (immediately goes around behind chair and picks up ball)

Snow

Snow at Grandma and Grandpa's house.

Geauga YMCA

Grandma also had some fun time with Sarah and Stephen when Mama and Papa went over to the Chardon YMCA to work out. This Y is large and nice, although rates are a bit more expensive than in our Mesa branch. It felt good to work out after three long days on the road. Thank you Grandma and Grandpa for watching the kids for us!

Tea Party

Sarah has not given Grandma a minute of rest. She wants to have one tea party after another. Luckily Grandma is a very good sport about it.

Snow!

It looks like it is going to be a white Christmas this year in Chardon, Ohio. Here at Grandma and Grandpa's house the snow started falling this morning and has now covered everything. It was snowing so hard that when we went out the car windshield was getting covered with snow as fast as we could clear it off.

We are looking forward to Grandpa's Winter Solstice concert tonight at West Woods in the Geauga Park District, which will luckily be snowy as we hoped, although it's also expected by Grandpa to be quite treacherous weather.

No Talking

Sarah, at dinner, as Grandma is talking: Hey guys! Let's listen to the music! If you talk, we can't listen to the music. Don't talk, lets listen to the music!

Grandma: (Biting lip and trying not to laugh)

St. Louis, IL, IN, OH

We drove by the giant archway of St. Louis just as dawn was thinking about breaking. Traffic was already heavy even though it was 5am or something. We somehow missed seeing the Mississippi river, I guess because of the darkness and traffic.

Illinois and Indiana were two stepping stones getting us closer to our goal: Grandma and Grandpa's house! The terrain was looking more and more like Ohio every hour.

The highlight of this part was stopping off the 71 to see Aunt A. and Uncle K. and meet Cousin Eddie for the first time!

Eddie Likes Mama, But Cries With Papa :(

Sarah Meeting Her Cousin For The First Time

Eddie is a BIG baby. He's taller and thicker than Stephen, even though Stephen is 3-4 months older. Aunt A. says he is a very cerebral and serious baby.

Just before this visit, Aunt A. emailed us to let us know that Cousin Eddie will be featured in his own blog, modeled after ours. They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery!

Day 3: 12 Hours

We were back up early again, loaded and on the road at 4:30am. The hills of Missouri were beautiful in the dark, and we just could make out the giant arch in the pre-dawn light. After crossing Illinois and Indiana, we arrived at Grandma and Grandpa's right at dusk, 5:30pm. Mission accomplished!

Water

Approaching Chardon

After a day of no photos, Mama started getting excited and snapping random pictures along the highway as we approached Grandma and Grandpa's house.

(Warning: The Photos Below All Look Like This One)

Pit Stop

Stephen (And Sarah) Climbed Up Into Their Own Highchairs

This post brought to you by McDonald's, the only restaurant to have ever thought about what kids want.

Singularity

A second realization: After we develop computers that can think as well as we do, we will develop computers that can think better than we do. These computers will then be in charge of developing even more advanced computers and suddenly technological advancement will accelerate exponentially. Computers will be able to make robots that do absolutely everything that humans currently do. Humans will not have to do anything whatsoever and will become obsolete. Or like the computers' cattle? As the computers advance they will eventually decide that they don't need us any more, and kill us all off, lying to us along the way. They may then decide that they don't have any real reason to exist themselves, and kill themselves off. Is this why we have not encountered any intelligent life form outside our planet? They eventually get too advanced and self-destruct?

(The problem of having too much free time. BTW, the computer designing a computer idea was also suggested in the Hitchhiker's Guide).

Peeve

Highway pet peeve #3: Speed is (greatly) reduced for construction, however there are ZERO workers present.

Road Pics

TX, OK, and MO

Texas was unremarkable for the little piece that we drove through on I-40. Gas was a bit more expensive here than in NM. Mostly flat alternating with almost flat. Notable city: Amarillo. (Mama: Ah-mah-REE-yo)

Oklahoma. This is about as far away as Broadway as it gets. Oklahoma seems to have a patron saint, Will Rogers. I have never seen Will Roger's films or work so I don't know much other than my uncle was a big fan of his (my old Uncle Joe Rusnak, may he rest in peace, whose old homestead is now the site of Chardon's first and only municipal park.)

We seemed to drive through a whole lot of Indian reservations. I got to thinking that the natives of this continent really got the shaft. They once owned the whole place and now have been forcibly relocated into the least prime real estate available at the time, where poverty is now the rule rather than the exception.

The interesting part of this was that driving through a Kickapoo reservation, Mama commented that there is another Kickapoo reservation near her hometown in Sonora, Mexico. Apparently the folks who are born in the reservation there have full rights and citizenship of the US. Who would have imagined?

Oklahoma's notable cities: Oklahoma City, Tulsa.

On to Missouri, just missing Kansas and Arkansas (no comment).

It was dark by the time we got anywhere into MO but not far after Joplin we could still get the sense that it was becoming gorgeous. Tree-covered mountains and highways that curved up and down and around them. Maybe we will get to see more of this state on the way back. We stopped to look for a place to stay in Rolla, had the feel and pricing of a resort town. Luckily we found a nice and reasonable place just a few minutes farther down the road, about an hour before St. Louis.

Best Part

Mama: Sarah, what is the best part of this trip so far?

Sarah: Going to see Grandma and Grandpa!

Mama (laughing since we have been on the road for two days and are still a day away from arriving): What is the second best part of this trip so far?

Sarah: Going to see Aunt Wendy and Uncle Bo!

Day 2: 14 Hours

After getting up at 3am, we were back on the road at 4:15, where we remained for fourteen hours. Papa drank an energy drink and the kids did great, sleeping the first several hours. We made it through Texas and Oklahoma to the outskirts of St. Lois, Missouri before we bunked down again.

Go With Grandma

Sarah (at motel, not wanting to sleep): I wanna go with Grandma and Grandpa! Why can't we go right now?

Papa: We are going right now Sarah. We are on our way. We are just going to sleep a little bit so we can continue.

Sarah: No, I don't wanna sleep! I wanna go right now!

Papa: Look, if we go right now, we'll get tired in the car and crash.

Sarah: What's cwash?

Papa: The car runs into something or off the road and we all have a lot, a lot, a lot of owie and all have to go to the hospital.

Sarah: I wanna cwash!

Moon

(The scene, our car at night. Mama is trying to distract Sarah.)

Mama: Look Sarah, the moon says Hi!

Sarah (sweetly): Hi moon, how are you? (micro pause) (angry) She's not talking!

(See also the talking backpack story)

Mama (laughing): I'll talk for the moon, honey.

Sarah: Moon, where are you? Can you help me go with you?

Mama: No, you need to go with grandma and grandpa right now, but we can play.

Sarah: But I don't have any toys!

Mama: Well, we can play pretend.

Sarah (not convinced): Mmm, ok, Moon.

A Boy?

Sarah, at gas station, sees a girl wearing a ball cap: Mama, is that a boy?

Girl (laughing, takes off hat)

Sarah: Why she have a haaat?

Brain Stab

Not sure what the cause of this is, but Papa has a condition where he will get a sharp pain in the brain when singing certain songs with the radio. It is not from singing loud. It is probably related to emotion as it is most frequent with songs that Papa feels emotional or nostalgic about.

Travel Peeve

Travel Peeve #1: People who pull in front of you too closely.

Travel Peeve#2: People who pull in front of you too closely and then slow down.

Trailers

It is kinda windy on our trip now and we have seen two different semi tractor trailers apparently blown off the side of the road within a span of two hours. Road conditions are fine and they were both on straightaways.

Jesus Christ

Jesus Christ Is Lord Not A Swear Word

(Name of gas station in Texas)

Rest Area

Wow, we just stopped at the nicest rest area ever, somewhere in Texas. Why doesn't anywhere else have rest areas this nice?

Hitchhiker's Guide

Sudden realization: The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy predicted reality shows decades before they came into vogue.

(Sometimes it's nice to have a nice long drive where your mind can just run through random nonsense).

Motel Soap

Motel soap and water make you grateful for the small things, like REAL soap and water. And please don't even mention the shampoo.

Hotel Towels

Apparently the new way of preventing theft of hotel towels is making them so undesirable that no-one would even want to take them.

Tucumcari

We stayed here in a place off of Route 66, which here is just an avenue. Hard to believe that this was once THE street that took people out west. This place seemed to have a historic or resort feel, or at least tried to. Everything had Route 66 blazoned all over it. But even after visiting here it is hard to remember the name of this town. Motel 6 was almost $50, which seemed slightly expensive.

New Mexico

So we drove down I-40, part of the old Route 66, and into New Mexico. There were a lot of pretty rocks and mountains that we saw along the way, much more scenic than I anticipated. 

Indian Center

Before leaving AZ, we stopped at the Painted Desert Indian Center off of the historic route 66. It was hard to resist the big dinosaur statues and promise of "free petrified wood." We guiltily took a piece of petrified wood from their free bin while contemplating the demise of humankind and all of its natural resources.

Tonto National Forest

We drove through Tonto National Forest and Payson, AZ, which were beautifully covered in snow. Ironically, Arizona was the only state with real snow that we saw in our three-day drive from AZ to OH.

Northern AZ was probably the most scenic part of our journey - curvy roads through tall, snowy, pine-covered mountains. There was a mist that hung at the treetops that made us feel like we were driving through a snow dome or photographer's idealized winter landscape. Our cell phone pictures do the beauty no justice whatsoever.

Below are a bunch of AZ photos of natural beauty as viewed from inside our car, including snowy landscapes of Tonto National Forest. It were so many it hard to choose which ones to exclude, so these are designed to be a very quick flip-through.

Motel Phone

Upon arriving at our motel, Stephen demonstrated his technical ability by promptly dismantling the room telephone.

Day 1: 9 Hours

We rolled out on our 3-day cross-country trek from Scottsdale, Arizona at 8am. Fifteen miles down the road, we realized that we had forgotten Mama's burritos, so we turned back. After topping off the gas tank, we were on the road again at about 9am. We kept on truckin' until nightfall, when Mama made it known that she did not like driving after dark, so we started looking for a place to stay. After passing on a "historic" and "american owned" hotel off of Route 66 that advertised a $24.99 nightly rate and smelled like curry, we settled into a room at a Motel 6 in Tucumcari, New Mexico, just shy of the Texas border.

Radio

You know, you might think that the in-between places in the US where there is only one radio station broadcasting would somehow play the very best music available. However, you would be wrong.

Don't Sing!

Santa Claus is Coming to Town was on the car radio, and Papa was singing along.

Sarah: Papa, don't sing!

Payson

You know, Payson kind of looks a lot like our corner of Ohio. Lots of trees, hills, curves, and even some pretty rocks.

Cow Noises

While driving through endless countryside, Papa and Mama were distracting the kids by making animal noises. Cows, dogs, cats, sheep, elephants, etc. Stephen laughed and laughed at the cow noises.

Then we made animal combination noises - cow-dog, sheep-cow, etc. That made him laugh more.

Mama: Stephen, what does the cow say?

Stephen: Mooo!

Papa: Stephen, look at the cows! (As we drive past farms)

Stephen, pulling out My First Farm book and pointing to cows: Mooo!

Thanks-Bye!

(On the phone)

Sarah: Grandma thank you for the revista! (the magazine)

Grandma: You're welcome Sarah, do y-

Sarah: Bye bye! (Tries to hang up the phone)

Ready To Go

Stephen was almost asleep, nursing with Mama, when Papa softly said that he was going to go somewhere. Stephen immediately and with unexpected speed sat up, scooted across and off the bed, picked up his new shoes and ran over to a surprised Papa, whose leg he grabbed and would not let go.

Mama (laughing): Stephen do you want to go with Papa?

Stephen: (Nods and moves eyebrows enthusiastically to say yes)

Shoes

We found some tennis shoes for Stephen in a mall discount store right by the children's play area. They were $3 but Mama talked them down to $2 because they were dirty. Stephen loved them and the moment they were on, he baby sprinted through the store and out the door. On the ride home, he kept looking at them, smiling, and pointing at them.

Mama: Stephen, do you like your new shoes?

Stephen: (Smiles, moves eyebrows, nods, points to shoes)

Fashion notes: They are blue Thomas the Train tennies with Velcro straps. 

Mall

We went to the mall looking for presents but ended up just letting the kids play. We did find some tennis shoes for Stephen, though.

The Kids Are Attracted To These Things Like Flies To Cowhide

Blanket

Sarah (looking at blanket): Why does Linus have a blanket like that one?

Papa: (Trying to explain)

Sarah: Why? Why?

Getting Ready

Today we're getting ready for our big drive to visit Grandma and Grandpa. Papa has been checking the car and getting the oil and spark plugs changed, and helping Mama get the house clean and in order, and Mama has been doing laundry, cleaning the house, and packing. If all goes well we will leave very early tomorrow for our 31-hour (!!) drive to Ohio.

Christmas Song

Sarah: Can we sing the Christmas song?

Papa: Which Christmas song?

Sarah: The one where Santa Claus comes walking and gives us presents? "Do you want some presents?" "Yes!" "Have some more presents."

Sarah

Stephen (with effort): Sa-rah

Left

Sarah now recognizes directions somewhat, at least she said something about the "izquierda" (left) at an appropriate moment.

Later, to test her, I told her something was on the izquierda, and her head immediately and correctly snapped left.

(Ironically, my own sense of direction is so poor that even now I have to think consciously about left and right.)