“At first an ordeal and then an accomplishment, the daily run becomes a staple, like bread, or wine, a fine marriage, or air. It is also a free pass to friendship.”
~ Benjamin Cheever, Strides

Thursday, April 5, 2012

Getting there is half the battle

As many of you know, I ran the Knoxville Half Marathon this past weekend (recap HERE)....but getting to the race was almost as hard as running it...


The travel to Knoxville was sort of a series of mini disasters.  I went to load up the cats for their trip to the pet resort, and Ginger won the game of hide and seek. I spent 45 minutes looking for her, before deciding that she wasn't the cat that needed insulin injections and she could just stay home.  
Ginger, you go hide, I'll distract her.
When we returned home, she continued to hide from us for the first day - but I could tell by the food dishes and lack of dead-cat-smell that she was still alive.


The drive should take about 6 hours.  We stopped for an hour with Avery, so 7 hours.  
It's a "check what Mommy's doing" mirror!
We hit the Tennessee border, which is an hour from my brother's house, and then disaster.  Apparently, an embankment had collapsed requiring half of the southbound interstate to be closed.  It took us 2 hours to drive the next 20 miles.  I actually got out of the car to get Avery's food out of the trunk while on the highway....and moved to the back seat with her.  She was DONE. 9.5 hours after we started the trip, we made it to my brother's house.
I should have expected bad things after the TINY welcome sign.
During the worst of the stops, people actually got out of their vehicles and ran along  on the side of the road.  Although I commented that I could run faster than we were driving, I did not make any attempts to prove it.


The next morning, we all socialized a bit, let my niece open her birthday present, and watched all the cousins hang out together.
My two nieces and Avery
Charlie and Avery enjoyed alone time, together
The ride home went much smoother, although we got a later start and got stuck in some construction traffic on the way out of Knoxville.  We made only one short stop for diaper change and bottle for Avery.  Then, I moved to the back seat and just suffered until the end.  


I was so thankful to be home!  Avery refused to nap that afternoon, but I suppose I deserved it. 




Any kid/pet travel horror stories of your own???


Would you have run along outside the cars during the traffic mess?
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6 comments:

  1. Ali McApril 5, 2012 at 4:53 AM

    traveling with kids is crazy, but when Logan was a baby we thought it was a lot easier (as they sleep a lot more) we would pull over and feed him and change him into his PJ's when/if it was bedtime. Everything worked out. Now it's crazy - animal crackers and the portable DVD player are a must!

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    1. MandyApril 5, 2012 at 5:36 PM

      It was definitely easier when Avery was smaller! The drive to NJ in January was easy! She's now too old to sleep the whole time, and too young to be entertained by a DVD. Drat!

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  2. AnonymousApril 5, 2012 at 5:36 PM

    The last time I flew to Alaska to visit my brothers Caelyn was 8 and Nate was 18 months....he was still young enough to fly as a lap child. Yup, 11 hours with an 18 month old very active boy in my lap. FUN!!!!! And Caelyn's concept of time had her asking how much longer until we get there REPEATEDLY!!! It was a great vacation though!:)

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  3. AnonymousApril 5, 2012 at 5:37 PM

    I'm not anonymous, I'm Heidi ;)

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  4. LauraApril 6, 2012 at 11:59 AM

    Oh, that drive sounds so rough! L does not do well in the car...

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  5. AlyssaApril 7, 2012 at 4:24 PM

    LOVE the pic of the babies together! That drive sounds like the worst. One time we were on our way to Ohio to visit the inlaws and there was such a bad accident that a helicopter came and parked on the highway! We got out and Eric taught me how to swing a golf club properly.

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