"Find joy in the journey." - Pres. Thomas S. Monson

Homebody by nature, I define "spontaneous" as anything with less than 2 days' notice. You may disagree, but this was pretty out of the ordinary for us. We decided to do something with Brandon's 3 day weekend and head to Provo to ye olde stomping grounds. Do you remember those roadtrips you took with your family and half the fun was the drive? This was not one of those trips.

Actually, the way there was quite enjoyable, except for the fact that Teagan didn't sleep a wink of any of the 6 hours. Turns out 6 hours in a car with a conscious 19 month old is difficult when you don't have an iPad/Phone/Touch. Of course, I anticipated this, so raided the dollar store and the library for fun new things for her to play with and watch. (I apologize to anyone who looked for anything Dora-related at the Windmill Library the weekend of June 9th - I was scouring the aisles like a mad woman.) I even managed to snag a special 8 episode DVD instead of the usual 4 to maximize the possibilities...and the room in the car. I wanted to use movies on the laptop as a last resort (mostly because battery life was a concern) and I'm a little bit proud to admit that we didn't use it on either car ride! My resolve wavered several times, but we held strong and Teagan made it - just like the good ol' days before we had all these handy-dandy devices and we hung toilet paper out the window or dragged army men behind the car.
Teagan read her new colouring book like it was the morning paper, experimented with sensory deprivation by closing her eyes to reach and eat and when I asked her to wipe her face, covered her eyes with the wipe making it look as though we had taken a baby hostage. It's worth noting that I stocked up on Goldfish, veggie straws, applesauce, fruit snacks and other such age-appropriate snacks. She preferred her dad's bag of BLT Lay's. I didn't raise no fool.

Our saving grace was a stop in Cedar City (about 1/2 way) for gas. We remembered driving through with friends a while back and we stopped at a school down the street from the gas station to let their little boy run around. (I say "we" but I mean "Brandon". I can't remember what we had for dinner yesterday.) We stretched our legs, filled our bellies and renewed our patience. Nothing like putting in it PARK halfway through a roadtrip! Yes, she looked like a tiny homeless person with unkempt hair and dirty pajamas, but it made for fun photos.

After a couple of days of swimming, shopping, wandering, eating, visiting and reminiscing (not to mention 4 hours of sleep the previous night...a post all its own) Teagan did manage to sleep in 10 minute stretches on the way home.

When she wasn't asleep, she was screaming. 10 minutes of sleep, 5 minutes of screaming alternated for 3 hours became a little tedious. I struggled to find joy in this journey. Until...

We passed the Wienermobile. Brandon says he can die happy. Unfortunately, in my frenzied attempt at capturing the magic, I cut off the license plate. "OH I WISH". Brilliant. And just to be sure, I stuck my head (and expensive camera) out the window at 65 miles an hour. In hindsight, not the best idea I've had, but boy was I glad I did it. 

After stopping at the same park on the way back, Teagan was a little bit nicer. It helped that we'd picked up little finger puppets at Ikea. Those kept her entertained for a few minutes. I must give Teagan a little credit - the last time we spent more than an hour in the car she was 2 months old. So I can't say I blame her for being a little upset that she had to sit so long. I can, however, blame her for not sleeping the night before. Bet you can't wait to hear about the rest of our trip! It really wasn't as bad as I'm making it out to be. It was fun to be uninterrupted together as a family. Brandon and I played some classic roadtrip games and it really was nice to just be together, even if one of us was screaming.

So, am I a little proud we made it without the assist of technology? Yes.
Would I do it again? Ask me later - I'm busy researching smartphones.

 

We definitely found joy in the journey...we just had to look really hard.