The Drive

The best decision we made about the trip from Yuma, AZ to Massachusetts was to split up the girls.  I had so much anxiety thinking about them joining forces and driving me insane on the road.  The thought of sending TC to Will's car never even crossed my mind.  When Will suggested it I felt pretty sad, that was a lot of time for them to be apart but the more I thought about it the better it sounded.

I got Addie because she's a little obsessed with me, I think I lucked out.  TC is a talker...she does not stop.  Although Addie wont be 2 until December we decided to forward face her car seat.  I was really stressing over this, I am a big fan of extended rear facing and kept TC rear facing until she was 2.5 but when Addie totally took herself out of her straps while driving home from Target a few days before we left the decision was made.  Rear facing is safer but nothing is safe then she's not strapped in!  It made life so much easier while driving that distance too, I can't lie. 

All in all, it was pretty uneventful, we had a puke stop the first day and a few accidents in TC's car seat but nothing major.  I have to be honest, most of this country is boring to drive through.  A few things of note, northern Arizona is beautiful, it's startling to see a horse and buggy on a major interstate, I never want to eat at a place call Stray Dog BBQ - just sounds wrong, snow in WV is not fun, if you want to listen to church on every radio station on the dial drive through Missouri on Sunday morning.

We didn't follow the original Google map because we stopped outside of Ft. Campbell to see my mom, it was nice for her to finally meet Addie. 

TC was happy to see grandma too, she doesn't remember meeting her 3 years ago but she does like to talk to her on the phone.

Of course I loved seeing her too, I hate that we have to go so long between visits.  Maybe one of us will win the lottery so we wont have to wait so long again.

The next night we stopped in West Virgina, it was almost a disaster.  While driving though the mountains Will's eyes just gave out.  Since his injury his night vision is just crap and he was to the point when he could drive no more.  We pulled into a Days Hotel and the two young girls informed me that they didn't allow pets.  We decided to just leave them in the car for the night, not the end of the world, until we realized it was going to be below freezing and they were expecting snow.  I lost it, I cried to the girls that he was a disabled vet and he couldn't drive anymore for the night and wondered if there was anything we could do...that night Moses was promoted to service dog.  (My cat was fine in the car with her carrier under a pile of blankets.)  I am still so grateful to those girls for helping us out, I don't know what we would have done.

We woke up to a beautiful mountain snow but not so beautiful to drive through, like many things on the trip the snow was my fault.  Will had no problem blaming me for so many ridiculous things along our way.  I spent a good amount of time crying while driving along.  I am not sure I really want to get into all of that just yet, but I do want to make sure that I am not pretending all of our problems disappeared as we bee-bopped across the country. 

The girls did pretty well.   I am no expert but splitting them up really did help us, they seemed excited to see each other each night and didn't wake each other from naps on the way or anything else that would have driven me nuts.  Also, handing back an iPad when nothing else worked was great, a few games or a movie on that and then they were out.  I had crackers in hand for Addie and Will kept oranges and apples ready for TC.  Also having a stash of sippy cups at the ready made picking drinks really easy, I didn't have to worry about what may or may not spill.

When we rolled into New England it was like a weight was lifted.  I have never been more excited to see "Welcome to Connecticut".  When we finally made it to Providence, RI I cried real big fat tears.  I just felt home.  Setting my radio stations was like a religious experience for me.  I can't really explain it...we had no place to live and no idea what was going to happen but I knew I was home.