Road Warrior!

Have I ever mentioned that I HATE road trips?

Let's start about 6 weeks back....

Somewhere around the first week of July, after packing all of our earthly belongings and spending 4 nights on the floor of our empty house, we loaded 3 boys (all ours), 2 suitcases, an over-night bag and over a dozen guppies into the van, left SW Florida and "moved" to West-Central Virginia.

930 miles -- 2 days (please adjust for having to travel with 3 kids under 9 and 18 fish in saran wrap covered tank)

Side note: After 4 nights on the floor of our empty house in Florida and two days on the road, we arrived at our new house, without keys and discovered the moving van had broken down and would not be able to deliver our stuff (beds) for at least another day. * Praise God for "Angel Ms. Mel" who upon learning of this immediately booked us in the Hampton Inn for the next 3 nights--on the Conference's tab (we ended up only staying one night). Add a night on the floor of our new house.

To celebrate our first week in Virginia, I took the big boys to Camden Yards to see the Orioles lose to the Tampa Bay Rays (Toby's favorite team).

203 miles one-way, with a sleepover at PopPop and GiGi's house (real highlight of the trip!).

Few more days in Staunton, VA and we head back to Maryland to visit family for the weekend.

181 miles -- 3+ hours (Friday rush-hour traffic on the beltway)

2 days in Maryland and then we headed to New York so Charity could take a week-long class.

236 miles -- about 8 hours (missed exit with "short cut" thru New York)

The "reward" for this trip was 12 hour days with 3 young boys in a motel room! Actually, one day was spent WALKING to Subway for lunch and than exploring every other shop along the way back. Another day was spend visiting a mini-golf/go-cart/arcade/lazer-tag place ... about additional 80 miles -- 1.5 hours round trip. A third day was spent at a local mega-mall and the last full day was spent at a zoo, in a state park. In addition to the roughly 60 mile round trip drive, we all hiked down a narrow, rocking path (think, most "fun" parts of the Billy Goat Trail) from the zoo, across a water-way, up the other side, around the ruins of Fort Montgomery and back--a more than 1.5 mile hike each way ... and Toby did it all carrying Ben's stroller (I got to carry Ben!). Though extremely exhausting, this was a great day and I would highly recommend it to anyone within an hour drive of Bear Mountain in New York. Besides the zoo, there was a (I believe spring/river fed) large swimming pool, carousel, the "fort" (you could skip that--or at least drive to it instead of walking), an outdoor ice skating rink (not operational in July), and several "museums" in revolutionary period buildings.

New York to Wilbraham, MA to visit our favorite cousins ... and Lyol, before they move to Chad--Africa!

146 miles -- longer than it should have taken!

This visit served the duel purpose of helping to transport some things from MA to MD that will not be going to Africa, but should remain "in the family." All was well and good, until I allowed Olen "bigger is better" Netteburg to go to U-haul unsupervised and he returned with a 12-foot trailer. It should be clarified here that I had borrowed my father's 12 year-old Yukon with over 230,000 miles--while he was out-of-the-country--with the "slight" implication that we might pull a trailer back, but that we wanted to use it because we could get more IN it! Anyway, much like Field of Dreams--If you build it, they will come, if you have a 12-foot trailer, it WILL get filled! Couch, Love seat, Kawasaki Ninja (big heavy motorcycle), rod-iron arch way, dishes, pictures, winter clothes (not too useful in Africa), popcorn (?), roller-blades, parachute, rocking chair, and boxes of Who-Knows-What! An important side note here is that the phenomenal packing job took so long that we ended up staying an extra night which meant we would need to get from MA to MD, unload, turn in the the U-haul and get to VA in one day--with 3 kids, in tow (FIGURATIVELY, of course!) so that Charity could report for New Teacher Orientation.

MA to MD, 449 miles (we opted for the longer route to avoid NY with the trailer) -- 6 hours and 19 minutes according to the GPS ... 9 and a half hours according to Murphy's Law of Reality!

It was 9 PM by the time we (with the help of the other sister & brother-in-law) had unloaded the trailer onto the front lawn and then into my in-laws house (what a wonderful surprise when they return next week from 3 months on the other coast!). Being late and everyone being tired, my thoughtful and caring wife made the decision to have us crash at the house and she would get up at 5 AM and drive her mother's hybrid down to the training in the morning, letting us sleep in. After loading the car with as much of her brothers stuff she could take, she headed to bed. In a moment of uncharacteristic insight, I thought to go make sure the electric car that hadn't been driven in over 2 months would actually start...Surprise...it wouldn't! So around 10 PM I started trying to figure out how to charge and start it. By 11 PM I gave up after trying at least 3 different solutions and made the decision to unload everything in the car into the Yukon--which we would then have to drive to my parents house to unload it into our van before for heading to VA in time for Charity to make her meeting the next morning. As we were removing the last couple of things from the trunk, I noticed that the trunk light seemed to be brighter than before. With much hope I tried to start the car one more time...IT STARTED. Now the question if I should leave it running all night to make sure I don't get awoken at 5 AM to drive my wife to VA! We quickly repacked everything and I "took a drive." To my amazement, I could literally see the battery charge as I drove around and it restarted after turning it off. Praise God, it apparently started in the morning as well, because I was awaken by my 1 year-old at 6 AM instead of my wife at 5 AM (truth be told...I got up at 5 AM while Charity was in the shower and made sure it would start).

After returning the trailer (a whole other story that I will spare you at this time), returning the Yukon, unloading the Yukon, loading the van and cleaning PopPop's Yukon (I thought that my van looked like it did because we never clean it...apparently, judging from the hours it took me to attempt to return PopPop's Yukon to the pre-kid state at which I had borrowed it, my kids can totally "trash" a vehicle much less time than I had previously thought possible!) we headed back to VA.

193+ miles -- 6 hours!

Not done yet! Aunt Bekki was planning on drive a U-haul with various family heirlooms from Nanny with cousins Lindsey and Jonathan to Southern University and asked if I would be able to come down to drive it to MD to unload the remainder of the contents at my mother-in-laws. Being ignorant, I agreed than found out that the day she was hoping for me to pick-up the U-haul and trailer was the first day of school for Charity and the big boys. Additionally, I discovered that Collegedale, TN is really not a whole lot closer to Staunton, VA than it is to Silver Spring, MD ... as I had thought it was. My mother-in-law and loving wife suggested that I could drop Benjamin off at the school as soon is the first day was officially over--drive to Collegedale, TN--pick-up the U-haul and trailer--drive back to Staunton, VA and be back just in time to take Benjamin back as Charity and the big boys headed off to their second day of school! I "lucked out" and the U-haul was going to be ready for me to pick-up late afternoon on Sunday (no sports on the couch for me!). Conveniently, my mother-in-laws hybrid was still sitting in front of our house, so I climbed in around 9 AM, stocked with; GPS, I-Pod (along with broken adapter I would later discover), couple of books on CD, soda, water, jerky and pine nuts. I pulled into town about 3:45 PM. Those little hybrids don't seem to like to do over about 93 mph! Some various things with getting the U-haul ready to leave town and it was just after 6 PM that I climbed in the the cab to head back to VA, with the "encouraging" announcement from Aunt Bekki that it doesn't like to go much over 55 mph -- on that flats (route 81 back to VA is continual up and down!). Long drive shortened, I pulled-up in front of our house a little after 1 AM. But instead of going straight to bed, I begin my new job of "Mom" by making lunches for all those starting school in a few hours. Really not that compassionate of me--I couldn't sleep after all the caffeine I had in my system!

856 miles (round trip) -- roughly 16 hours.

Still had to get a desk, bookcase, shelve system Grampa had built and Charity wanted (to accompany the 4 other desk and 7 book shelves we already have) unloaded before getting everything else to MD. I was "too tired" Monday, it rained all-day Tuesday. Charity suggested that I head up after school, so I wouldn't have to take Benjamin ... but I think Ben, really wanted to drive the U-haul. So, Ben and I unloaded the 10 ft. book shelve thing along with the other pieces and (ignorantly) climbed into the cab of the U-haul and headed to MD. This was (initially) a huge thrill for Ben, he has never before be facing forward in his car seat, much less able to see out the front window while driving! However, we both quickly learned that it is much harder to sleep in a straight back, forward facing car seat that in a reclining rear facing one! We made it without to much trouble, but then quickly learned that Ben doesn't like to play in the house alone and though he can not pick up a single box, he feels the need to "help." So, what probably could have been a less than 30 minute unload took a "good" hour. Thankfully, PopPop and GiGi showed up (with lunch) and played with Ben while I finished cleaning out the U-haul. By this time however, it was near 3 PM (guess I'm not going to get the boys picked up from school like I had hoped!) and I still needed to return the U-haul, a "short" 6 miles down New Hampshire Ave. (30 minute drive at that time, plus a 15 minute stop to fill up the U-haul at what has to be the worlds slowest gas pump--Never get gas at the gas station on the corner of New Hampshire Ave. and Lockwood Dr. in Silver Spring, MD!). Those of you familiar with the greater DC area will recognize the situation that I now find my self (and my 19 month old son, who thankfully fell asleep during this) in trying to "get out of town" from Takoma Park, MD at just after 4 PM. Another long story made shorter and lesson learned, Ben and I pulled up to the house at just after 7:45 PM.

346 miles -- 9 hours 15 minutes.

Thursday night, I aborted our previous plans of driving to MD for the weekend and stayed home!

... Stay tuned for the most interesting thing learned during the first week of school