Driving 'Round the Bend: Part 1

We left home 2 days after I started on antibiotics for walking pneumonia. Dumb. I shouldn't have been going anywhere but my own bed.

The 18 hour drive took almost 25 hours. I was ready to turn around and come home when we hit Boise (6 hours in), where we stopped for some supplies. I was getting Marley out of the car so she could come inside with me and stretch her legs, and she promptly barfed all over both of us. In my very ill fog, I had not thought to put extra outfits for the kids or myself in the car, and all the clothes were in suitcases strapped down to the top of the van with cords, rope and tarps. There was no undoing and then re-doing all that in a very cold parking lot. We cleaned up as best we could, but little did I know we had 19 more hours to enjoy the faint smell of vomit floating about the car. (Where ever you think of it from here on out, insert a screaming child, some cup throwing, a few "He's touching meeeee!" 's, some over-tired crying, and many potty stops)

Me, still sick.

We hit some nasty weather, though not in the Snoqualme Pass, which was the stretch we had been most worried about. No, these patches came in other mountain passes, in the dark, boxed in by transport trucks on every side. We got stuck behind 2 separate accidents. The first, we sat for and hour and a half without moving an inch. The second accident had us sitting there for an hour and 45 minutes before we started creeping forward. And two of us had needed a bathroom stop well before that.

Me, so sick.

We finally got out of the second jam, though still drove carefully since it was alternating between snow and rain, and then some psychotic transport truck driver (FedEx needs those How's My Driving? numbers on the backs of their trucks) decided it would be fun, for no reason at all, to speed up, start wildly honking his horn, and then pass us, seriously maybe 2 inches from taking our side mirror off. We were not in his way (no one else was around), we were squarely in our lane the whole time, and the roads were anything but dry. It's good I wasn't driving because you mess with my kids, and it's over for you. I would have done something stupid.

Sick.

We made it to the border eventually. Mind you, none of the kids have slept more than cat-naps at this point, about 23 and 1/2 hours in, but Noah was trying. The border agent had us take the blanket off of Noah's head so he could see that he matched his passport photo, and Noah flipped out. With a raised eyebrow and a bit of a scowl, the agent asked several questions, including whether Jeremy had ever been arrested, and why we were coming through the border at 4 am with a van full of kids. Yeah, that was our plan, border man, to get to the border at some insane hour after driving ALL DAY so that we could enjoy Christmas with our sick cranky kids. Yup. That was the plan.

Bleh. Duncan, Gabriel, Noah and Marley, coughing.

My parents' church starts at 9 am. We did not attend. This frustrated me because the Sunday before Christmas is one of my most favourite times to be at church. By Monday, the entire family was on antibiotics. I needed a good cry and 12 hours of sleep. I got neither.

That's that, I thought. The trip back will be better.