Chicago: Day 2/Iowa: Day 1

The plan for today was to get up and attempt to get into downtown Chicago, seeing as how it was Saturday and the traffic wouldn't be as intense.  But when we all woke up and Jasmine opened the curtains in the hotel room, we saw that it was a miserable, rainy day.  So we nixed the Chicago idea.  I was disappointed, because I really wanted to be able to say I had gone to Navy Pier.  But taking the kids down there in the rain would have been a stupid idea.

Starting off on our trip!

We decided to have a leisurely morning in the room, then pack up our stuff and get on our way to Iowa so everyone could relax at Jasmine's house.  I wasn't looking forward to the 5 hour drive because the longest Punkin had ever been in the car was about 2 hours and I didn't know how she would do.  She wound up surprising me, though.  After we were checked out and loaded into the car, we took off and she fell asleep pretty quickly.

Iowa Scenery

The drive itself was quite uneventful.  Jasmine's car doesn't have A/C so it was warm, but the airflow from her open window made it bearable.  Most of the beginning of the trip was cloudy as we were driving by Illinois corn and soybean fields.  I really liked the scenery - Jasmine says it wasn't as pretty as the route she took to get to Chicago, but I still enjoyed it . It reminded me of when I was a kid and we would drive from Texas to Pennsylvania.  Lots of low hills and farmland, with big white farm houses and fields of cows and horses.  The kids weren't nearly as interested in the scenery as I was, so thankfully they were really interested in Punkin's Dora and Barney videos on her DVD player.

The gas station we stopped at

At one point as we were driving through Illinois, we realized we needed gas soon, so we got off at the next exit.  The only gas station on the entire exit was 3 miles off the highway in a tiny little town called Lyndon (population 1,500).  I loved the little town - you could tell, even just driving down the two lane road, that everyone in that town knew each other.  We found the little Conoco gas pumps, which were sitting in front of a little place called Gibson's General Store.  The station was right across from a corn field sitting between two houses, and it was so CUTE!  I swear... if I could be sure that I was within a reasonable driving distance of a Wal-Mart and a Taco Bell, I would LOVE to pack Punkin up and move to a tiny little town like that.  I even looked on Zillow as soon as we got to Jasmine's house to see if they had any houses for sale in the town (there were 2).

The People of Iowa Welcome You!

The Mighty Mississip!

Not long after we got back on the highway, we passed into Iowa and I was able to cross state #26 off my list of states visited.  I am officially half finished with my Bucket List goal of visiting all 50 states!  I'm still behind, though.  I wanted to hit a new state every year until I turned 50, but I'm 29 and I'm still only at state 26.  So hopefully for the next couple of years I can hit at least 2 new states per year to catch up.  I was driving, so I made Jasmine pull over so I could take a picture of the Iowa sign, lol.   I even took one with my phone so I could upload it to Facebook and show people that I really WAS in the land of corn!  Not long after that, I got really excited because we crossed the Mississippi River - something else that reminded me of when we used to take road trips when I was a kid.

We stopped in Cedar Rapids to have lunch at Olive Garden.  It was nice to get out of the car to stretch, but disappointing that we still had an hour or so to go to get to Jasmine's house.  We ate fairly quickly and got back in the car.  Punkin put up a fuss - I think because she was hot and was REALLY tired of being in the car.  She didn't do too bad though.  I really am proud of how well she has handled all of the traveling thus far.  She's not been good at long car trips in the past but she seemed to make the best of this one.  I think it's because she had her DVD player.  I'm pretty sure I'm going to have to buy her one of her own since the one we have is my friend Michelle's and we'll have to return it.

We drove through downtown Independence, but I was so tired that I didn't pay much attention to it.  I'm hoping we'll get to go into town one day while we're here so I can take some pictures and experience a taste of small-town life.  Once we got to Jasmine's house, we did a whole lotta NUTHIN.  No one even really wanted to move.  The kids played in the playroom while the adults just vegged out.  I met Jon, Jasmine's husband, and their friend Dave, who kind of lives in the basement like some old hermit of an uncle.  He's nice though, so I can't really complain.  We had Hamburger Helper for dinner with ground beef (only important since Jasmine has been trying to sell me on the idea of eating ground deer meat - ew) and again I was surprised with Punkin - she's not a beef eater but she totally polished off a big bowl of that enchilada Hamburger Helper!  Bedtime went easy - I rocked her in Silas' wicker rocking chair and sang Rock-A-Bye-Baby to her over and over and she fell asleep on my shoulder.  I love rocking my babe. :-)

Jasmine and I watched part of The Proposal with Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds until I fell asleep on the couch.  It was a damn long day, and I was tired!  Thankfully the couch was comfy and I was able to sleep all night!

Chicago: Day One - The Bad Stuff!

I was really excited to go to the Lincoln Park Zoo.  In the weeks leading up to this vacation, I researched it on the internet and found it's one of the last free zoos in the US.  So I was super excited about going, especially because it was going to be free and because I know how much Punkin loves animals.  I wish I had been more aware of where our hotel was in relationship to the zoo, though.  We pulled it up on the GPS on my phone and found it was about 12 miles away by way of I-90, which is not that far at all.

Once we got going, though, we found that it certainly wasn't going to take us only 20 minutes, like the GPS said.  The traffic in Chicago is HORRIBLE.  HOR-RI-BLE.  Almost as soon as we got on I-90, the traffic started, and it was dense.  There was no way to move from lane to lane and we never broke 10 mph the whole time.  The kids were okay at first... they both dozed off.  But almost an hour later, when we had only gone about 5 miles, Silas woke up in a complete meltdown.  Punkin slept through it at first but soon it escalated into a fit the likes of which I've never seen and she woke up crying, too.  Silas was screaming and crying so hard I thought he was going to throw up and choke.  He wouldn't calm down for anything and both Jasmine and I started to get panicky.  Jasmine was getting claustraphobic and I was starting to have a panic attack.  About that same time, my phone died, and we had no GPS.  So we were stuck in this horrible traffic with a screaming toddler, a crying toddler, no idea where we were and no idea how to get anywhere.  I remembered that GPS told us to get off at Lawrence Street, so we looked out for it, but it was closed due to construction.  Silas was still screaming, so we tried to get off at the next exit, but it was closed for construction too.

Chilling in the car while we panicked on the side of the road.

That's the point I completely lost control.  I was in absolute panic-attack mode.  I could NOT GET OFF THE DAMN HIGHWAY.  There was NOWHERE to go.  No exits were open, no lanes were moving any faster than 5 mph, Silas was having a nightmare meltdown, Punkin was scared, confused and crying, there was no air conditioning in the car and I had no idea where we were.  We finally crept up on a little sidewalk on the right side of the highway and I made Jasmine pull the car off the road so everyone could try and calm down.  I used Jasmine's phone to call my dad in Florida to tell him what was going on while she took the kids out of their car seats to calm them down.  I was on the phone with my dad for almost 20 minutes, trying to tell him where we were and what was going on while he looked Chicago up on MapQuest and gave us some suggestions.  We were only 5 miles from the zoo (according to MapQuest) but going there at that point was the farthest thing from our minds.  We just wanted to de-traumatize the kids and get back to the hotel.  I called Monica and let her know we were turning around.  We finally got back in the car and eased our way back into the traffic, then crept along till we came to the next exit, where we got off.

We found a Dunkin Donuts and pulled in and got the kids some donuts to eat, hoping food would appease them for a while.  I was still in a panic, though, because I knew the only way to get back to the hotel was to get on the same highway going in the other direction, and the traffic looked just as bad over there.  I couldn't take another hour of sitting in the car with screaming kids in the back.  I called my dad again and he gave me some more tips (gotta love my daddy!) on how to get back to the hotel from where we were.  The kids had been fed and they seemed to be happier and I was calming down a bit, so we got back in the car to head back to the hotel.

THANK THE GOOD LORD JESUS ABOVE, we hit a major detour on our way back to I-90 and managed to miss the majority of the traffic on the highway heading back.  It only took us 15 minutes to get back once we got going.  We got the kids upstairs and into the bath (they were a mess from donuts) and then dressed for bedtime.  We called Monica and asked if she wanted to bring Elodie up for a pajama party and she did, so the three kids ran around the hotel room together till bedtime while Jasmine and Monica kept a close eye on them - I don't know if it was stress related or what, but I had developed a fever and a stomach bug and was curled up in bed trying not to die.  After Monica and Elodie left, Jasmine and Silas crawled into their bed and Punkin and I snuggled into ours.

I wish the day had turned out better, because I was really disappointed about the zoo.  Punkin had been asking about seeing animals for days and I didn't even get a chance to show them to her.  It was really nice being able to meet Monica and Elodie though!  I've now officially met 4 women from the BZ board - Jenn and Evan, Genia and Bryson, Monica and Elodie, and Jasmine and Silas!

Packing, packing and more packing

I feel like I've been packing all day.  Maybe because every time I put something new in the suitcase, Punkin would find a way to hop up on the bed, snatch it OUT of the suitcase and run away with it.  Argh.  After we had a good-bye lunch with Bren (who is SO sweet, BTW!) my mom came and gave Punkin a bath, then took her back to her house so I could get some packing and cleaning done.

I think I'm almost done.  I have a couple more shirts, my bathing suit and some snacks for Punkin left to put in the bags, but then I'm done.  I'm going to my BodyFlow class at 6:30, coming home to get Bo, then heading over to my parents' house.  I'm hoping to have both Punkin and I in bed by 8:30 since it looks like we'll be getting up around 4:30 to leave for the airport at 5 to make our 7 a.m. flight.  Ugh.  Just saying that makes me tired!