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
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.
