Over the Memorial Day weekend, we took a trip back to Chicago for my cousin Jessica's wedding. A lot of planning went into the trip since we intended on driving it. Normally, what would be a 17 hour drive straight through was stretched to 20 hours each way so that we didn't feel rushed and could plan a few places to stop and let the kids run around to tire them out and let them stretch their legs a bit. So after what amounted to literally two months of planning, we hit the road.
As we hit the road, the trip started off well enough. I accidentally took us the wrong direction for about 15 minutes before realizing that if I went that way, we'd make it to Chicago well enough, but we'd miss all of the stops along the route that I had planned on making. So luckily, figuring this out 15 minutes into the ride as my navigation system was screaming at me, we did an about face and started back the correct direction.
Hoping that wasn't the first of many tests, we headed toward Tifton, GA which was going to be our first stop along the way. Things were moving along quite well, the boys were watching movies in the back, Antoinette and I were talking about one thing or another, and then roughly 2 hours into the drive, we get an annoucement from the back that we've never heard before on a road trip and surprisingly hadn't planned for.
"I have to go pee-pee!!!"
OK then. Well, he had a pull-up diaper on, but we are trying to teach him the proper way to do this, so of course the only solution is to hit the next exit which typically seem to be the next mile or two up at just about any point along the expressway. Luckily, we had the Georgia Welcome Center coming up which should have some of the cleanest bathrooms we could find for Billy to use. So off to the side of the road we pulled and Antoinette took Billy it to do his business. Meanwhile, AJ and I decided we would hang out in the picnic area and I'd let him run around a little while steering him clear of fire ant nests.
About 10 minutes later, Antoinette and Billy pop out of the bathrooms and from a distance, it looks like she's waving me over. As we get closer, it becomes apparent what the issue is. Antoinette's shirt is somehow covered in pee. Apparently, in her haste to get him situated on a cleaned and prepped public toilet, she forgot that with little boys, you need to know where things are aiming before you let them start working.
Within seconds, Antoinette realized she was standing directly in the line of fire, but by then it was a little too late. So here she is standing in front of me, shirt covered in pee, and with Billy telling me that he "pee-peed on Momma". Trying not to laugh, Antoinette informed me that she needed to get into her clothes on the top of the truck. Nope. Not happening. That sucker is tied down tighter than you can imagine with about 4,000 straps and zippers, etc. The only option was to take my shirts off (I had two) and let her borrow one until we could stop and find another at a local store for her since the rest stop didn't seem to sell anything.
Now, delayed about 45 minutes, we jumped back in the truck and got back on the road. The problem is that we had to make it to and through Atlanta before rush hour or we were going to be royally screwed. As we continued along 75 heading back north, after a couple gas stops, one more pee-pee stop, and two false alarm poo-poo stops, we slammed right into heavy traffic in Atlanta, now a comfortable hour and a half behind schedule.
Our plan was to stop and pickup dinner and then eat it at a place in Marietta, GA called Kennesaw Mountain Memorial Park, which gets absolutely great fantastic reviews online. Perfect for a nice area to let the kids run around and burn off some more energy before they get back in the car for a few hours. Now, stuck in traffic, we made the decision to get off the main road and take some backroads to get to Kennesaw. We wound up stuck in traffic for another 30 minutes and when we finally got to where the navigation was telling us was the Park, we had a problem. This...was...a...cemetery. Really? A cemetery? Couldn't be the place. We drove around looking for another park and wound up getting lost in some neighboring subdivisions. Before long, we were parked in front of some random stranger's house in some nice subdivision in Marietta changing the kids, deciding to just drive straight through the next stop surviving on snacks and juice, and programming the navigation. Not sure if those people were home, but they were probably thinking "who the hell are these people?"
Back in the truck and on the road, trying to make up time again. It was crucial we made the next stop before the sunset for two reasons. First, there was a danger element to where we were going the darker it got and second, it was a National Park that closed at sunset. Since dinner was on hold, we decided to run it and try and get there and beat the sun. Luckily traffic started to clear and we were off, heading north on 75 to Lookout Mountain on the Georgia/Tennessee border. Something had to go right since the first part of this trip was a disaster.
A couple hours later we were arriving into town, a couple of turnoffs and quick backroad turns, and we were driving up the base of the mountain. The mountain drive to the top seemed to last forever, but eventually we twisted and turned our way up to the park entrance outside of some little shops and the park's front gate. As we parked, we were rushing to get in not knowing when they would come and close it up for the night. As I fished through my wallet for money to get in (a couple bucks, but you had to feed them into this machine), I found myself struggling to get this stupid thing to take the bills I had. In the meantime, I dropped my sunglasses which in a flash were snapped up by AJ who somehow managed to crush them in less than 3 seconds, utterly destroying them before I could stuff a dollar back into my wallet and bend over to pick them back up. Wow!!!
Finally we paid and got into the park. What a night so far. Once in the park, we set out a blanket for Antoinette to change AJ before we sat down for dinner while I took Billy around to check out the park (not a very large park). These are the pictures the attached video starts with. Lookout Mountain is amazing and the Point Park at the top was unlike anything I'd ever seen before. At the top, there were no walls or barriers from preventing you from simply falling off the side of the mountain. If you looked off from the top, you could see Chattanooga way down below directly behind the sights of some old cannons. In the middle of the park was a giant monument to the soldiers (seen in the photos) and on the other side of the park was a nice view of the sunset (also seen). Once we were done having dinner, we decided to let the boys run around and burn off their energy before we slapped them into their pajamas for the night. While exploring, we found a walkway and decided to take it. Glad we did. The path wrapped around the front of the mountain to an old fort offering amazing views from the top that you could walk through.
Once the boys were tuckered out, we changed them, dressed them, and made our way back to the truck, hoping to get off the mountain before the sun set (the dangerous part of wanting to get their early). Never a good idea to drive in the dark on an unfamiliar mountain with a truck full of your family. Once back on the road, the boys were out cold pretty quick, and I drove the rest of the way back to Chicago other than one quick switch with Antoinette so I could catch a couple hours of sleep.
When all was said and done, we arrived into the Northwest Indiana/Chicago area just as the sun was coming up, only 45 minutes off schedule, which wasn't too bad considering all that happened along the way. The last 30 minutes were the toughest as Antoinette kept me awake as we talked about the plan once we arrived at her Mom's. Once we arrived, the kids went to Mom, the truck was unloaded, the blowup bed was blown up, and Antoinette and I were out cold.
About 6 hours later, we were up and ready to get dressed for the Rehearsal Dinner (Billy is in the wedding as the Ring Bearer). Antoinette and I got ready as Billy slept in Grandma's room. Figuring we could get ready and then wake him up to make things move along quicker, we had everything ready to go as I went in to check on him and start moving him along. I climbed into bed with him and put a hand on his back to shake him gently and came away with a wet hand. Oh no. He peed in Grandma's bed!!! He never does this at home, especially not during naps. As I rolled him over, I realized there were some solid objects in bed that looked more like a #2 instead of a #1. Now that's never happened!!! I called Antoinette in because this is definitely a job for Mom.
Once in, we started to wake him up and then we realized that this wasn't a #1 or a #2. This was a #3. Billy had thrown up in bed and then just slept right through it. In 3 years, I've never seen him actually throw up, so it never crossed my mind that this is what I was looking at. We asked him how he was feeling and he said he was all better, so Antoinette started getting him dressed thinking maybe it was something he ate, while Grandma and I stripped the bed and cleaned up the mattress.
Once that was done, Antoinette took Billy in to brush his teeth and from the other room, we hear SPLAT, "Oh no", SPLAT SPLAT SPLAT, "its OK, Billy. Get it all out." That's not good. As I turned the corner, it was apparent to me we were not attending the Rehearsal Dinner tonight. Billy had thrown up all over himself, all over Antoinette's new outfit, all over the floor (hall and bathroom), all over the sink, toilet, walls, bathtub. This was some Exorcist stuff going on. So I placed the call, cancelled our night, and promised the bride we would spend the next day and a half trying to get him better for the wedding.
Instead of eating pizza and having a few drinks with the family, we found ourselves nursing a 3 year old back to health. Antoinette holding a vomit bucket (tupperware bowl) and me driving to the local store to pickup 7UP, Saltines, and Pedialite. Fun night. Luckily Billy only tossed his cookies for the next 3 hours, followed by 4-5 hours of just not feeling very well. By morning, he was feeling much better, so we spent the day at my folks house with my brother and his family and my sister and her family. By afternoon, the kids were running around at the park and Billy was back to 100%.
The wedding day rolled around on Sunday and Billy was tuxedo'd up and read to go. We arrived at the Church and we decided that Billy would be allowed to walk down the aisle with Heath who was one of the groomsman and someone Billy was very familiar with. He performed admirably. I spent the remaining hour and a half ceremony trying to keep AJ occupied since he had no intention on remaining quiet or sitting through an entire Catholic wedding. Luckily, someone had a toy that was able to distract him for literally 99% of it.
After a few pictures, we went back to my folks to change relax, get the boys a short nap so they could make it through the reception, and then head back to the Conference Center where the real party started. The night was a lot of fun. Billy was dancing and having a good time and spending a lot of time catching up with Carli who he wanted to take him everywhere. AJ on the other hand was looking for something to destroy. He was like a little heatseaking missile the entire night. When we arrived at the reception, he beelined right for the table holding the cake in the empty Hall with every intention on destroying it. He tried to rip down speakers, climb up the stairs to the head table, attempted to pull drinks off tables, tried to run into the chef's kitchen, and was using the photographers foot stool as a jungle gym, among other things. I was exhausted just chasing after him all night.
On Monday, we cancelled plans for Brookfield Zoo or the Planetarium (for one thing, people are getting off'd at record pace in Chicago, so that didn't seem like a great idea to take kids down there). Instead, we were back at the park and had a grill out at my parents to let the boys play with their cousins who they don't get to see very often.
Tuesday morning, Grandpa and Nannie split to head back with my brother to his home in Delaware, my sister Christine and Mark went home with their kids back to Wisconsin, and Antoinette and I went back to Minooka to spend the rest of the week with her Mother. First stop of the week was Choo-Choo Johnny's, which is a restaurant in Naperville where there are trains that bring your food out to your table and Thomas the Train is running on big screen TV's. Right up the boys' alley. We then headed over to the Naperville Riverwalk and walked the entire length of it with the boys one way and back the other.
Over the course of the next couple days, we made a couple more stops. The next was the Rain Forest Cafe at a northside suburb. What a train wreck. It was torrentially downpouring which made the drive fun, but before long, we made it to the cafe. The girl up front told us the wait was 45 minutes, so we expected the place to be packed, but once inside, we realized it was less than half full. After waiting forever, we had to deal with an incredibly rude Manager who told us this was proper staffing levels there and this wasn't unusual after blowing us off. The kids loved the animals and sounds, but then the food came out and Antoinette's salad had a living bug crawling around in it. Horrible experience.
Last stop was at the Morton Arboretum in Lisle. This place was actually very cool and a lot of fun. First, we setup a picnic for the boys and then we took them around the park to see all of the exhibits in the kids area, the tree gardens, the playground areas, and the hedge maze. The kids had a blast and I've included quite a few pictures in the video.
On Saturday morning, we were back on the road, heading back to Jacksonville again. First stop was Indianapolis and Oldfield-Lilly's Summer Cottage Mansion in the middle of downtown Indianapolis. The mansion is huge and a short tour through the house probably succeeded in boring the kids, but Antoinette and I enjoyed it. For the kids, a picnic lunch on the expansive grounds and a chance to run around in the massive front lawn filled with soft green grass like you just don't see in Florida gave them a chance to work off a little energy before they had to jump back in the truck to head to our next step.
About 3 hours later, in Louisville, KY we stopped at Falls of Ohio State Park on the Indiana side. It gave us a great view of downtown Louisville and an opportunity to stand in the Ohio River, like the Mississippi a few years back when we were in St. Louis. The Park involved a long walk down a ramp, followed by a short climb over some jagged rocks onto a flat surface filled with fossils and fishermen. But the Park was very buggy so we held out there as long as we could and then we were back on the road.
After a very long drive through the night, we timed it up perfectly to arrive at Jekyl Island State Park in Georgia just in time for sunrise on the beach and a morning breakfast. While the boys were just waking up, Antoinette and I were pretty tired, so the final hour and a half of the ride to get us to our front door was a tough one, but before long, we were home. While we were gone, we were able to dodge the first Tropical Storm to hit Jacksonville of the season, which was perfect timing for the sod that I just laid in my front yard.
On a final note, both of the boys are doing great sleeping in toddler beds, so we were able to retire the Pack N' Play until the next batch of kids. We'll see how that plays out on our next road trip. More on the boys in the next update.
Next update will have the 4th of July and an update on Tropical Storm #2, Debby. Here's the video...
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