The Rest

I usually write the last post of each trip the week after we get back. Or occasionally the next month. Life with toddlers doesn’t often lend itself to casually writing at a coffee shop.

But this post takes the cake. It’s now a solid four years after I last wrote about our Folks Fest road trip. I took some notes, snapped a few photos, and figured I’d write the rest after I got back. On-site camping at a folk music festival isn’t exactly the take-out-your-laptop vibe. But work was busy when I got back, then the holidays came around, and then the world fell apart. Remember the winter of 2019, everyone? Remember how we just walked around without masks thinking we’d have some extra free time once January gets here? Hoo boy.

But I won’t belabor the point. That story has been written. The months turned into years, and I remembered in the back of my head that I had left the road trip blog unfinished. Then “wasn’t there something I needed to do with the blog?” Then, (crickets chirping) as life moved on.

In fact, I don’t think I would have even noticed that these posts were unpublished if I hadn’t pulled up the blog as we got ready for another trip (Belize, more on that later).

I probably would have just read the posts, smiled, maybe sent them to Aimee, and then deleted them. The only reason I’m finishing it up is because those next couple of days introduced us to some of our best friends to this day.

So there we were, four years ago almost to the day. We rounded out our roadtrip through some sleepy ghost towns in New Mexico and a surprisingly delightful Best Western in Raton, CO (seriously).

By the time we rolled up to Denver, everyone was in good spirits. We paced the trip slowly and made sure we consumed no fewer than 200 calories an hour. I had reserved an RV rental for the rest of the trip, since we weren’t sure how a one year old would nap in the tent we usually take to the festival.

After we secured the RV (with Aimee a safe distance away with the kids, since I wasn’t sure if my carseats-buckled-into-the-couch plan was entirely legal), we needed to drop off the car somewhere. I asked at the RV counter if they had any suggestions about where I should leave my car. They said, “Absolutely! There’s a lot right behind us that’ll store your car for $10 a day.”

So we transferred our gear and pulled up to the lot. This was greeting us.

On one hand, I was a little terrified. On the other hand, I figured the owner (inhabitant? Squatter? Last man on earth?) had no fewer than three shotguns in his trailer. No one would be messing with our car.

$30 later (cash only, of course), we were in the last hour of our road trip up to the music festival.

Of course, an hour was really more like three. Although we did get one our favorite photos ever of the kids, so all the stops were worth it.

But that did mean we’d be getting in after the sun went down. For those who have never been to a Planet Bluegrass festival, people plan their trips there years ahead of time. The campsite opens two days before the festival, and most people are set up before the first star is out. So when we rolled up at 10 pm the night before the music started, the place was packed to the gills. Tents were up, guitar circles were formed, and there was a very particular scent wafting through the air.

It took two laps to even find a site, and even then, I was 90% sure I couldn’t fit our 17 foot RV in it. But after a third lap to confirm it was the only option, I slowly nudged my way in, trying not to blind more than 30 or 40 people with our headlights.

Here’s my note from that next morning.

Got in late. Every site set up. Cool neighbors.

At least that’s how I remembered it. To hear our now-friends tell the story, some A-hole stunk up the campsite with their exhaust fumes, woke up everyone, rolled over the guy-wires on our tent, and then had the audacity to be from Arizona!

They were not wrong. But after a full charm offensive over the next 24 hours (they were the only campers to bring a kid younger than ours), all was forgiven.

The festival was a delight. We listened to three days of wonderful music, caught up with lots of old friends, and turned our neighbors into the type of friends we shared a beach house in Mexico with not two months ago. An absolutely wonderful experience all around.

That would have probably been a nice point to wrap up the blog for this trip. My memory is fuzzy, the notes are sparse, and we do have another trip this week to get ready for. But there was one more story of note on the way home.

On a tip from our new friends, we took a different route home through Colorado’s peach-growing country (Who knew? But they’re amazing.) and spent the night at a hotel built next to a natural hot spring. We spent our last full day of the trip splashing around in 80 degree water and loved almost every minute of it.

But Mimi and I thought it would be fun to go on the lazy river ride before we called it a day. I wasn’t as alarmed as I clearly should have been by the three flights of stairs you had to climb before you reach the mouth of this “lazy” river. Nor did I turn around when multiple groups of people ahead of us changed their minds and headed back down. How hard could it be?

After the 19 year old at the start of the ride looked at Mimi, shrugged, and handed us our figure-8 float tube, I put her in the front hole and launched us down the slide. Of course, the hole was twice as big around as she was, so after a valiant effort holding her in with my feet for the first 10 seconds, she shot out  of the tube and I was barely able to grab her before getting launched myself. 

All I remember about the next part is thinking, “She’s 3 years old and can’t swim, just hold her out of the water.” So I did. Arms outstretched through just enough water to fully submerge my nose and mouth as we slid down the concrete “river.” I was eventually able to slow myself down enough after three more turns to stand up and place her on the ground that we had mercifully worked ourselves down to.

Through the adrenalline, I couldn’t feel a thing. But the crowd at the top started to point and ask if I was ok. Then the 19 year old running the ride saw us and went ashen. Mimi was clearly fine (I actually think she was giggling at that point), but he asked me to go to the first aid station while another 19 year old admirably tried to apply a few little Band-Aids to this.

I still have a few scars to this day. But I also have a few stories. Worth every bit of it.

And with that, I think it’s time to turn my attention back to our next trip. I want to get that blog done before 2027.

We made it

Even just a few hours of sleep can put a catastrophic lack of milkshakes into perspective.

Aimee took the early shift that morning, and brought our 3 going on 14 year old down to the lobby for some coffee (and orange juice in a coffee cup) before a quick dip in the hotel pool.

Quinn and I appreciated the much-needed extra sleep, and went down to join them poolside.

We were in no rush, so we dawdled down at the pool and then slowly packed up our room. But by this point it was 11, and I still hadn't eaten any breakfast. And, um, you know, hangries. So when Aimee saw me grumbling and huffing as I pushed our over-stuffed trunk closed, she kindly suggested that I swing by the lobby for a quick breakfast. Knowing she was completely right, and also not wanting to admit it, I silently sat down for green chili breakfast burrito. Three bites in, I was infinitely more empathetic towards Aimee’s episode of nomilkshakeitis the night before. 

With the universe back in balance, we made a pact to always keep an outrageous amount of snacks close at hand. I am referring to both the rest of our road trip and the rest of our marriage. So we sent our threenager out for some groceries.

I suppose we shouldn't have been surprised when she came back with nothing but bananas, chocolate bars, and Pirate's Booty. But there's wisdom in that three year old. We're going to make it. Good work, Mimi.

Next stop: A rest area about twenty minutes away from our last stop. Bananas really have a way of running through a three year old's digestive tract. But Quinn didn't mind running around while Mimi reconsidered her road trip fiber consumption.

All things considered, the twelve hour rolling hanger episode was hardly the worst thing that could have come out of our first real road trip with two small kids. I could have spent the morning pulling elk hair out of the radiator grill. Or more accurately, pulling my radiator grill out of an elk.

And just like that, we were back on the road. Doing this on purpose. As a vacation.

Great American Road Trip

It's a right of passage. It's an institution. It's also a terrible idea.

Let's put four people (two of them squarely in their toddler years) into a mid-sized automobile and spend most of our waking hours strapped into our seats. And we're using PTO for this.

We had a pretty ambitious plan. Over the next few days, we'd make our way to the Rocky Mountain Folks Festival in Lyons, Colorado, camp for three nights, and then make our way back home. This is intended to be fun. We're doing this on purpose.

As is usually the case, one of us was working a 12 hour shift right before we left. This time it was Aimee. So I packed up the car during the kids' naps.

Cooler, pack and play, car potty. This was the first that time two of those items have ever made our music festival packing list. And the cooler isn't packed with what it used to be.

As the sun went down, we entered what Aimee and I have been referring to lately at the Lightning Round. No matter how good our day with the kids was, anything can change between 5:15 and 7:15. The pre-dinner to bedtime run was equal parts giggles, tears, and occasionally a bit of blood. But thankfully, this one wasn't too bad. I fed the kids, put them in the car, packed their pajamas, locked up our house, and set off for the hospital to pick up mama.

The kids were predictably amped up by the late night road trip, but we were counting on them to fall asleep pretty quickly. For one, road trips are just easier with sleeping kids. That's partly why we set off on our road trip at 7pm, despite a decent amount of nighttime hazards on the rural mountain roads out here. But the other, arguably more important reason, was that we needed them to be asleep before we got to Springerville, the last outpost before the high desert expanse between Whiteriver and Albuquerque. Aimee and I had been looking forward to the fast food milkshake that used to kick off nearly every road trip we've taken over the past ten years. That tradition had gone by the wayside since a couple of impressionable back seat passengers entered our lives, but they wouldn't know what they were missing if they were sleeping.

So we thought.

About twenty minutes into our drive, Old Man Quinn McSnoresalot let out a snort that jarred Mimi out of her nearly-asleep daze. Giggles followed, led by some tears of exhaustion, and then the inevitable potty request.

I pretended not to hear her, but internally I was kicking myself for not offering another potty break after we picked up Aimee. On our previous trips, Mimi frequently used the potty as an excuse to hang out a bit longer and delay bedtime. But lately she's been going to bed pretty well, and the potty talk only comes out when she really needs to use it. So I finally acknowledged her fourth or fifth request, and let her know that we'd find a place to pull over. But unfortunately, we were passing through McNary, an old lumber mill town twenty years after the lumber mill closed down. It's the kind to town you skip the bathroom in at noon, let alone on a pitch-black moonless night. So we kept driving, and Mimi kept whining reminding me of her biologic needs.

We pulled off the road about fifteen minutes later, at the pull-off for Sunrise ski park. It was an area I knew reasonable well, and could navigate at night. So I found a safe patch to put down the car potty, and unbuckled Mimi. While I was looking down for snakes and scorpions, Mimi was looking up. "Daddy! Stars! So many stars!" I realized that when you go to bed at 6:30, you don't really get to see this very often. It was probably the first time in her life that she's been outside for a moonless night. And it's not like there's a lot of light pollution on the northeast corner of the Fort Apache Reservation. It was an incredible night for stargazing, even if you've seen them a time or two. Mimi was clearly awestruck, and it was magical to experience that with her. "Daddy, will there be this many stars in Colorado?"

*Sniff* Yes, my love. And also you can have a cell phone when you turn fourteen.

After I dumped the car potty (thankfully only pee-pee this time), we got back in the car and continued our adventure. We put on some quiet music, and Aimee and I communicated in hand motions and facial expressions to not risk waking up the kids. All was looking good as we saw the lights of Springerville coming into focus. But as those lights got closer, the kids started to stir. Not quite waking up, but enough shifting in their car seats that we didn't want to take the chance of having them catch us red-handed in the Sonic drive through.

Cell service was spotty, so we couldn't load any map info. I knew that there wasn't much more between now and our first stop in Albuquerque, but I figured there'd at least be a gas station or something. So we kept on driving.

As the Springerville lights faded behind us, it became quite clear that there wouldn't even be a road sign for the next several hours, let alone a place to grab a milkshake.

I should take this moment to point out that my wife is usually quite charming. She's funny, a good storyteller, an all around warm and caring person. But after a 12 hour shift in which she skipped dinner so she'd have enough room for a milkshake, she wasn't in a particularly great place once that milkshake failed to materialize. The hangries run strong in our family, and I should have known better than to not pack at least 10,000 calories worth of snacks. This was on me. Needless to say, it was a relatively quiet car ride for the next hour or so.

A silent car wasn't the worst thing at that point in the drive. I needed every bit of my concentration. If aliens really did land in rural New Mexico, it's no wonder they didn't stick around for long. That place makes Whiteriver look like New York City. It was dark and desolate almost to the point of cliche. Like a movie director came around and said, "Nope, not creepy enough. Put a broken Cafe sign in front of that abandoned building. Yep. Put an old tow truck over there. Good. Yeah, definitely blow out the back tire. Nice. Rattlesnake? Anybody have a rattlesnake?"

But the worst part was the elk. For the next ninety minutes, I saw three cars and easily forty elk. Every time I'd turn a corner or come over a hill, two small reflective green orbs would appear. Then three thousand pounds of car-stopping animal flesh would come in to focus behind them, and I'd try to figure out if any of it was on the road. I was going literally 25 miles per hour at that point, and was still terrified. It didn't help that three of our friends in Whiteriver recently totaled their cars (and the elks) earlier this year while driving in similar conditions.

As Aimee was either napping or drifting into a hypoglycemic coma, we entered El Mapais National Monument. The dark and desolate stretch of road managed to get even darker and more desolate. But at least I knew a park ranger would find our bodies in a few days.

The road winded through giant sheer rock cliffs that I was sure would be quite beautiful with even a hint of daylight illuminating the road. We eventually made it to the I-40 junction, and I can't remember the last time I was so excited to see a road sign. By that point, the twists, turns, and sudden braking had woken Aimee up, but thankfully not the kids. We were about an hour away from Albuquerque, and I was still determined to find us a milkshake. So I was thrilled to see that a (well, the) truck stop on that stretch of the freeway had a 24 hour McDonald's inside of it. We pulled in and avoided streetlights and speed bumps like the plague so that our kids would stay sleeping. We've had several conversations with Mimi about why we don't go to "The M" for lunch, despite it being one of only a handful of restaurants in our area. So it would be a little awkward if she woke up with us slurping down a couple of chocolate shakes under the yellow and red light being cast off by the giant forbidden golden arches.

I dropped Aimee off to get the food, and circled around the parking lot with the kids. Five, ten, fifteen minutes passed, and I started to wonder how long it took to fill a couple of cups. It's not like the Acoma Pueblo McDonald's was jumping at 12:05 am.

Aimee eventually came out with a large paper bag, but looked sullen. All she was able to muster was, "No milkshakes. No milkshakes."

After she came to terms with our new reality, Aimee told me that they shut their milkshake machine down at 12:30 am. Skipping the obvious question of why do you need to shut down a milkshake machine, it was barely after midnight. "Yep. That's was I told him," Aimee said. "But apparently tonight they shut it down at midnight."

Of course they did.

Looking back, my blog notes from that night were autocorrected by my cell phone to:

No shakes. Duck.

Stay classy, Siri. But that wasn’t quite what I remembered dictating.

However, there was a slight consolation. Aimee pulled out the biggest carton of french fries that I have ever seen from the paper bag. "Here, these are yours." Then she proceeded to pull out an identical carton for herself.

Yes, that Aimee. The Aimee that completed the 114 mile Tour de Tucson bike race while three months pregnant proceeded to demolish her body weight in McDonald's french fries. It was hard to keep my eyes on the road.

Thirty minutes later, we checked into the Best Western Rio Grande. The place was nicer than it needed to be, and the staff graciously brought us a loaner crib for Quinn. We tried to smuggle our kids into their beds without them waking up, but that turned out to be quite difficult to do while cleaning off the giant blowout that Quinn had made at some point on our journey.

This is supposed to be fun. We're doing this on purpose.