Monster Cookies

July 16: Day One

Author: Amber

Thursday July 16, 2009
Day 1 - Calgary, Alberta to Billings, Montana

At the bright and early time of 05:30, we jumped into the van and headed out. The boys were full of excitement and were in awe of the sunrise.

We decided to stop at Tim Horton’s for breakfast on the way out. Before we were even out of the parking lot, we had our first incident. One of the boys dropped his juice on the floor and couldn’t reach it and began to cry - hard. We hoped that this was not how the whole trip would be!

After the juice thing was all fixed up and straightened out, we were on the road. The boys shared their breakfasts with each other and waited impatiently for my daily schedule to begin.

Yes, I did make up a schedule for us to follow while in the van. I figured it would make the time pass faster, or at least make it feel like time was actually moving at all. Here’s what I planned for our days:

07:00: Breakfast
08:00: Into the van, free time
08:30: Bible story, Devotional, Prayer
09:00: Sing, Clap, Dance Music time
09:30: Trivia
10:00: Snack stop!
10:30: Into the van, free time
11:00: Worksheets
11:30: Worksheets
12:00: Lunch stop!
12:30: Into the van, free time
13:00: Quiet time/naps
13:30: Quiet time/naps
14:00: Movie
14:30: Movie
15:00: Snack stop!
15:30: Into the van, free time
16:00: Reading/Books
16:30: Reading/Books
17:00: Writing time (Postcards)
17:30: Dinner stop!
18:00: Into the van, free time
18:30: Journal Writing
19:00: iPod Book/Storytime
19:30: iPod Book/Storytime
20:00: Bedtime stop/snack

This has taken a lot of planning. First, I tried to model it after our regular summer schedule so the kids might fall into the routine easily. Jon researched, created and printed all the worksheets according to each boy’s level. He made crossword puzzles and word searches for the oldest two. He also downloaded stories like Peter Pan and The Hobbit and put them onto his iPod. Me, I didn’t do too much, but I did buy some new surprise toys and books; pencils, crayons and pens; and snacks (that aren’t messy!) and drinking boxes. I trust that it will be a sucessful way to keep the boys from uttering the words, “Are we there yet?” too often.

The drive through Alberta was pretty much uneventful. Jon and I hoped the boys would fall asleep since we had accomplished a 05:30 departure time, but that didn’t happen. We stopped to pee just after 08:00, and then finally crossed the border to the US around 10:00.

Crossing the border wasn’t a big deal. We pulled up, and waited in line for about 15-20 minutes before it was our turn. The border guard was intimidating, but I think that she is supposed to be like that. Jon warned the boys not to say anything unless they were spoken to, and they didn’t (remarkably!). It WAS pointed out to us that we forgot to sign our passports (oops!) so we did that before we went any further!

We had a surprise waiting for us on the other side…speed limit 75 mph. Wow! That is just over 120 km/h, which is about 10 km/h than we usually drive on the highways. We laughed at the sign that said the speed is radar checked. How much faster do you want to go? Really??

Other things from today…

Having Claire rear-facing is a challenge. She can’t really participate in anything when she is looking out the back window and missed out on seeing the pictures during the bible story and seeing the actions during singing time. She is big enough/old enough to be front facing, and her seat can be front facing, so I might turn her around tomorrow to see how it goes. Then probably back to rear-facing for her once our vacation is done!

Daniel peed on the side of the road because he just couldn’t wait any longer. He was ashamed and embarrassed and uncomfortable, but we encouraged him through it! LOL

One of our children grumpily told us that he has seen EVERYTHING already and doesn’t need to see anymore. He does NOT want to do the long drive and he just wants to go to Winnipeg and skip the rest. He announced this just before 11:00 on the first day. Ha!

My side of the van has an air-leak in the window seal and so it is noisy! I try to cut down on the wind noise by folding up paper and stuffing it into the crack, but it only works for awhile…it pops out after awhile from the pressure of the wind.

The oldest two boys each had moments of sharing and compassion toward one another. I love to see them like this and I hope for many more moments like this!

It is so funny to me seeing everything in miles…it makes me wonder how any babies ever get the name, ‘Miles’ when it is on every single highway sign in the US.

On the subject of miles…there are mile marker signs along the side of the highway that report each mile. The highway exit numbers correspond with the mile marker numbers, for the most part, so you can usually tell how much farther you have to go until the exit you’d like to take. I think this is cool!

We stopped in Great Falls for lunch. Jon chose a diner called Tracy’s. It was something cool that Jon found on the internet, so he thought we should check it out. Well, the food was good, but it really isn’t a place for children. Glasses to drink from and booths for two people. We managed to squeeze all six of us into a booth, and tried to gobble our food so we could leave…it was a rather uncomfortable and somewhat embarrassing lunch. We’ve decided to stick to drive thrus and fast food for the remainder of the trip.

There are a lot of fractions going on here. For example, a gas price would be posted as 264 9/10. A distance sign would show 1/2 mile, rather than 0.5 km (as it would be in Canada). Fractions on signs make me giggle.

Construction zones (there are a lot of them!) have you reduce your speed to somewhere between 45 and 55 mph. Jon and I really weren’t sure about that - it is so fast to be driving past the workers! In Canada, we drive past construction workers at a much slower speed.

The highlight (okay, not a good highlight, but memorable) of our day was when Jon was just mentioning he was getting tired of driving. We were having a small discussion about why he won’t just let me drive then, and one of our sons was at his whiny-est when all of a sudden we had to drive on a gravel road (construction re-routing). As you can imagine, that made everything way better. Okay, not better at all. We were glad when we got pavement back! After all that, we just had to stop at a playground for a little bit.

We saw windmills.

We saw “blue things” according to Andrew (mountains).

We saw endless stretches of highway.

We arrived at our hotel in Billings early enough to take a swim before having a late dinner.

The kids went to bed fairly well, and slept through the night with only a small amount of bed shuffling. They started the night with Andrew and Josh sharing a bed and Daniel in his own bed. In the morning, we woke to find Daniel and Josh cuddling in one bed and Andrew curled up on the floor. Poor guy…hopefully tonight he’ll get to stay in his bed all night long!

And, finally, my delicious discoveries of day one…Papa John’s Hawaiian pizza (which they don’t actually call Hawaiian pizza) and Cherry Coke poured over ice. Josh even said that the pizza was way better than ice cream! We only bought a medium pizza, which ended up getting eaten so fast we were all left wanting more. I guess we know for next time! Also, the pizza came with the YUMMIEST garlic butter dip…mmmmmmmmmm…I certainly need to see if they make that in Canada!

Tags: Vacation 2009

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 2nd, 2009 at 9:15 pm and is filed under News, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.