Road-Tripping

This past weekend, my big little girl and I went to visit the grandparents. Grandma had a birthday on Saturday, and we thought a surprise visit would be just the thing to make the day memorable. The drive down was uneventful. She slept for two hours while I drove. When she woke up, it was time for food, gas, a diaper change, and a short walk around the mall we stopped at so I could stretch my legs. Even two hours in the car is enough to make me start feeling stiff. I guess that happens when you're tall enough to earn names like “Beanpole” and “Ogre”. Most cars just don't seem to fit quite right. My feet also get cold when I drive, and the walk helps to warm them up. I suppose it has something to do with being folded up like a tent pole in the car, but it may not.

My daughter and I have traveled like this before. When she was only two months old, we took her to Florida on a family vacation. The flight down was not a problem, but Frau Hausmeister was very concerned that because our daughter hadn't yet been issued any official identification, it would be impossible for us to prove that she was ours in the event of an emergency. This is one of the events on that trip that stuck in my mind. The other involves the flight back.

Our return flight was uneventful until the fasten seatbelt light came on as we were preparing to land. At about that time, Frau H, who was holding Baby H, announced that we had a full diaper. I, being the procrastinator that I am, and not wanting to try to change a diaper in a landing airplane, said that we could just wait until we landed and could take care of things in the airport restroom. Having made that easy decision, I went back to looking out the window and watching the landscape. A few minutes later, Frau H. moved our daughter and discovered a large, tan, wet blotch on her pants. We had a leaker.

Before anyone had a chance to catch a whiff of what we were up to, both of us had turned our vents on to spread the smell evenly throughout the cabin, flipped on the overhead lights, dropped the tray table, and started stripping our daughter. I remember apologizing to the man seated on the other side of Frau H. while I was rummaging in the diaper bag under the seat for wipes and a clean diaper. It was like being in an operating room – fast and efficient. The spotlight from the overhead light added to the effect. After bagging up the diaper in a barf bag, cramming the annihilated clothing into a ziplock, digging out clean clothes for Baby H, dressing her, and scrubbing at the tan stain on my wife's pants, we were done. As we finished, the plane reached the jetway and everyone disembarked, leaving the sickly sweet smell of wet wipes and fresh baby poop behind.

I was thinking of this incident on the way back home on Saturday while I listened to one of the radio stations that had been hijacked for 24/7 Christmas music. I was listening for the weather forecast, which I though had said that I could expect 3-5 inches of snow on the roads I was driving, with another 1-2 inches by morning. In the back, Baby H was strapped into her car seat, which was a good thing, because otherwise she would have been in orbit. She was crying and fussing, which made hearing much of anything impossible. Apparently, she hadn't heard the plan for her to sleep until the halfway point again, where we'd stop for food, a diaper, and gas, before hitting the road again.

It's not that I didn't check the weather map before I left. I did. I saw the storm, which covered most of the map. My plan was to cut through the heart of it, and then the second half of the drive would be smooth sailing as I drove up the back side of the storm as it moved east. The snow trucks would be out, Baby H would be asleep, and the drive would be uneventful.

As I slipped and slid along in the only lane of a six lane road that was still open, I was reconsidering this plan, and seriously thinking about stopping and spending the night somewhere along the way. The road conditions were such that the car drove like it had a rudder. It was snowing hard, and the best way to get good traction was to play follow-the-semi. What looked like clear pavement beneath the blowing snow was really just ice. My cell phone had died an hour ago, and I was averaging 40 mph. Baby H was getting so mad in the back seat that her cries were ragged. And there was that awful Christmas music. It was not a good night.

A stop to call home about the weather ended up taking 25 minutes. My phone card was out of minutes. My attempts to reload it failed. I dropped coins in the snow trying to use the pay phone. When the call went through, my dad told me that the road conditions were bad and would be getting worse all the way home. My wife wasn't happy about the prospect of me spending the night somewhere, and neither was I.

After another 20 minutes of “Have a Holly Jolly Christmas”, which was the furthest thing from my mind, the weatherman came on again and confirmed the bad news I had heard earlier. Fortunately, by this time, Baby H was asleep. I had been feeding her Corn Chex while driving, and had given her enough to satisfy her. I would reach back and hand them to her one at a time, and wait until her little hand found mine and she gently took the cereal to eat. This required some gymnastic contortions in the front seat, but it beat listening to her cry. By this time, we had reached the halfway point, and the roads were clearing. Furthermore, there was a steady stream of traffic coming from the opposite direction, so we pushed on.

The second half of the trip was almost anti-climatic. Baby H was sawing baby logs in the back seat, the snow began to let up, and the closer to home we got, the better the road conditions became. The trucks were out, and for the last hour there were even two lanes open. However, it was wonderful to be home. The knots came out of my back a day later, but the Christmas songs are still stuck in my head.

Only two more weeks until we make the trip back again for Christmas. I'm hoping for good weather, and have ordered a new phone battery and car charger. I'll be prepared next time. And I'll know all the words to “Have a Holly Jolly Christmas”.