June 9, 2013
Well, we are off on our great adventure. We had a few set backs, some scrambling and a handful of delays but we did finally hit the road at 10:30 Sunday morning.
The kids had made, oh, a hundred trips or so to Flyer with our final necessities and my meticulous packing of the days before was completely eradicated by my little tornados. When I entered Flyer I was shocked to see only a mountain of items from the kitchen all the way to the drivers seat. I scrambled to hurriedly find homes for as many items as I could to at least find seats for everyone. Man, how quickly does a small space fill up!
We were all in our spots and as Sparky was closing the door he asked, “everyone have everything?” Lego boy said, “where’s Oscar?” Now that would not have been good. Have all of the dog food, etc but no dog, (well, did find out later that I forgot the retractable lease). Oscar was patiently waiting in his kennel in our kitchen of our locked house and was happy to see us coming for him. He had been nervously watching us the last few days, as we packed thinking we were leaving him behind again. He was almost right!
After a few stops to say goodbyes and fill up gas we were cruisin our way.
As we headed down our first stretch of road Little Bear announced, “I’m going to try not to be rude or sassy at all on this trip!” Wow, music to my ears! This may be the best 30 days of my life it that proclamation comes true.
Oscar was shaking like a little leaf but he soon had explored all spaces and decided that his preferred perch would be on the back of the futon in front of the open window, with a screen of course.
As always, as soon as we were going the kids were hungry… Luckily I had a fully stocked kitchen at my finger tips. Being new to this whole “home on wheels” I naively swung open the refrigerator door and took the full quart of syrup straight onto my 2nd toe, splitting it open. Lesson learned – open door slowly, peek in, use hand to guard, keep feet back… All clear, ok good to go. Don’t need to teach me twice, I’m a quick study on stuff like that.
I felt a little like a flight attendant getting bounced around as I got them a snack and I’m not sure my balance would qualify for any sea faring jobs, but at least I stayed upright and no one wore their snack much to Oscars dismay.
The excitement was high as we experienced all of the “firsts” and many pictures were taken of mundane things like making snack, driving, and first nap.
Our first stop was Howe Caverns, NY. First we toured The Cave House Museum of Mining and Geology and the kids picked up their first souvenirs with their allowances.
Then we headed over to the caves themselves. It had turned hot outside and with no AC for the driver the 52 degrees at 156 feet below ground level was welcome.
Eating this month may not be the healthiest but I don’t think a month of maybe not ideal nutrition will harm the kids too much and I am sure this will be one of the things they remember. I cooked dinner of grilled cheese and cheese quesadillas
followed by mixed veggies, to share a pan to reduce dishes, in the parking lot before we headed to Niagara Falls where we will park for the night. Tomorrow we’ll see the falls.
As we traveled to our first night stop we watched a beautiful sunset and the kids settled down and fell asleep while we were on the road.
The cold of the cavern left Sparky with a headache. Legoboy thought this was quite funny so he snapped a pic.
Great first day.