Day 4: (Edmond, OK to Tucumcari, NM-- approx. 381 miles)
It was hard to leave Grandma's house but after playing with the cousins one last time in the morning we ate some lunch and left at noon. We traveled for 5 hours that day and still had yet to pull out any electronic devices. Henry wasn't too happy to be in the car again (according to the notes I jotted down every night... but it must not have been too bad because I don't remember!) James had a much needed nap though!
It was fun to continue to watch the change in landscape as we drove across the country. We saw lots of windmills and the trees got shorter and shorter until, in New Mexico, there were none at all!
This second part of our trip we had to plan out a little more since there were vast amounts of desert and not much in between! The entire trip I told the boys that we were basically driving old Route 66 where "Cars" took place. They thought that was pretty cool. We ended up staying in Tucumcari for the night... and I found out later that much of Radiator Springs was based on Tucumcari!
After dinner we went for our nightly swim. It was so much fun... until I started to smell something gross. Then I realized that Henry, who was running around, had pooped and was leaking. Stink! (Literally.) So we cut out swimming short and went back to the room for bed. We were so tired!
The next morning we were able to help a fellow Sooners fan. We over heard her plight of being stranded just hours from home with her two kids... hopefully it did some good!
Day 5: (Tucumcari, NM to Flagstaff, AZ-- approx. 496 miles)
The time change continued to work in our favor. We left by 9:00 on Tuesday. This was our longest day by far (only out of necessity! We drove through desert and more desert!) The boys were crazy from the start. James must have been really bored because there was tons of teasing. It's James' favorite boredom pastime. And there was definetly a lack of sleeping in the car! We did have a rousing game of travel bingo though.
For lunch we found a park in Albuquerque where we ran around for a bit. (Of course Siri led us astray to begin with! I'm just glad we found something!)
We stopped in Flagstaff for the night and it felt wonderful after the heat we had! We did our dinner and swim routine and then everyone was asleep within minutes.
Because our last day was one of our shortest we were in no rush. Rich was going to be at work and our stuff hadn't arrived yet. One of my friends was in Flagstaff the night before us and recommended a fun park. So we stopped by in the morning to get our wiggles out before we hopped in the car. It was a nice relaxing morning.
I don't know how it happened but my boys had never learned to do a "train" on the slide... so I taught them.
Around lunchtime we were passing the Hoover Dam. I thought, "why not?" so we parked and ate our lunch before heading out to walk around the dam. It was stinking HOT. Especially since we'd been in an air conditioned car all morning and the last time we were outside was in the 70 degree weather of Flagstaff! As the boys began to melt in the heat they told me things like, "I'm never playing outside again!" and "Why did we even more here?!"
James was upset here. He was looking over the edge but some onlooker thought he was trying to climb on top of the edge... so she ran over and grabbed him down. I know this lady was trying to be helpful but she scared me to death and made James so mad.
The boys especially loved this little spot where the workers had buried their dog. I don't know what they liked more: the story of the dog or the shade that the spot provided.
By 3:00 we had arrived at our new house! Hooray! We did it--just me and the boys and NO electrics! The boys certainly earned the movie that we watched that afternoon!
We were so happy to be "home" and see Rich again (for just a little bit though because he left for a business trip the next day!) I couldn't have done it without my awesome traveling buddies, lots of pre-planned activities, mystery bags, good books and music to listen to, and people to talk to when I got drowsy while driving. I am content in knowing I could do it and don't feel the need to do it again for a long, long time!
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