Have Kids, Will Travel--Logistics

I've had sort of a strange day. A bomb threat at work emptied the building for three hours, and then I had to interview for the position I'm already working in (they are making it permanent, but who knows if I will get the job). So I came home with an enormous headache, all the tension wound up in my shoulders and neck. Worse, I had a sore throat, and a fever. In other words, I've had a rough day, and I'm getting sick, two things that should never occur at once. I took the Things to the video store--they rented Matilda--and then brought them home. As soon as I could, I got into loose thermal pajama bottoms and an old sweatershirt, slipped on my favorite pair of slippers. I cooked pasta with red sauce and broiled zucchini for them. And now I'm eating a little zucchini and drinking Emergen-C, trying to ward off whatever I'm coming down with.

And then I started thinking about the road trip. Financially, it won't really work to stay at hotels every night, will it? I'm thinking we are going to have to camp most of the time, and leave the hotel/hostel stays for very specific locales. What should I do about this? Buy a small trailer? Any ideas? Anyone taken a very, very long road trip before? Give me your ideas, people.

Crikey, this entry sucks. I hate being sick.

*tm

**edited to include clarification on the roadtrip in question. I'm not talking about the Thanksgiving Roadtrip. I'm taking about the Summer 9 Week Roadtrip With The Things. I know I take a lot of trips in a car though, so that's probably why it's confusing.

Comments

[bartonfreak]

If you're going to drive to New Orleans and back in four days, you won't need a hostle. You'll just need a lot of No-Doze.

[Friend R]

S'what I'm sayin'. A Thanksgiving Road Trip isn't a time for "hotels" or "hostels" or "continental breakfasts" or other trappings of our consumer culture. It's a time for sleeping in the car, peeing in ditches, and annoying the hell out of each other in the middle of Wyoming, where cowboys aren't afraid to show their love for one another amidst the grandeur of craggy peaks and fluffy sheep. It'll take you a full day of driving just to get to 'Nawlins. Once you get there, you'll park your car in the abandoned Wal-Mart parking lot and pretend you're refugees. Thanksgiving Day, you'll serve up gumbo and cornbread at a soup kitchen (if you're *real* Liberals) then sack out at the home of some random hash-slinger you met who offered you a piece of carpet and a bowl. Friday, you'll wander Bourbon Street, wondering what it was like before Bush decided to let God punish it for its licentiousness (and probably miss the hoodoo shop, selling dried chicken hearts and shrunken lizard heads, washed away, never to be seen again) and hoping you can find a decent Hurricane. Disgusted, disillusioned, and dismayed, you'll drive to the airport Hilton, splurge on a double, and sleep the sleep of the non-displaced. Saturday, you'll bid the Big Easy a fond adieu and start back, driving until you think the you've reached the end of the world, only to discover you've only crossed into Oklahoma. Fueled by convenience-store powdered "cappucinos" and White Crosses, you'll begin a marathon trek across the plains, staring resolutely out the front window, and if you think of the Praire Schooners at all, it will be to ridicule them for thinking something better lay beyond the endless sea of dead grass and ugly rocks. Finally, you'll return to Eugene, your disaster fetish sated, sink into your nice, soft bed, and begin composing an epic blog entry about your experiences in the Third World state of Louisiana. Sleep? Trailer? Hostels? Pfft. You're a seasoned traveller, a writer willing to suffer for her art. Roll on, brave adventurer, roll on!

BTW, I'm really lit, so I can't be held responsible for anything I've posted. Rockin'. Oh yeah. Stop being sick. You probably just need more bread in your diet. Let me know, because my hands are itching to knead.

[Friend R]

Wow. I'm *really* drunk. I probably shouldn't be posting on other people's blogs right now. I'm sure my previous comment was offensive to someone, so I'm offering my apologies now, before the DemoRepubliFemiHomoMinoriGreens bust down my door and force me to sit through a Michael Moore documentary for my sins. I assure everything I said was said with love and humor. I'm just too drunk to know better. Ignore me. I'll go away. That's what *I* do, and it seems to work. G'night and feel better.

[Terrible Mother]

You, Friend R, are fine. Cute even.

But you TOTALLY MISSED THE POINT! There is no way, no earthly way, for Kari and I to drive to Nawlins and back in a weekend, even a long holiday one at that.

If we go to NO, Kari and I are going to fly. And if we don't go to NO, we'll stick to the West Coast.

[Friend R]

Darlin', I've made that drive, and I can tell you, it's possible. It'll take commitment and drive and cocaine, but it's within the realm of possibility, especially if you follow the handy tips offered in my inebriated post. I don't know how much "fun" such a whirlwind trip would be, but since when are road trips supposed to be fun? Oh, sure, we think they're going to be fun, but that's before the radio breaks after that 52oz. Dr. Pepper fountains onto the dashboard when the driver slammed the brakes and swerved to miss the cute little turtle trying to cross the road. Thereafter, it's nothing but recriminations and trail mix crumbs in the shorts.

[badfreak]

Now I really want to take a road trip with R.

But I don't swerve for turtles, cute or not.

[Exhausted but Still Hip Single Mother]

It's the flu--that's what I keep telling myself, anyway, though the day I felt a little better was the day I clicked on the neglected TV, whereupon some lacquered talking head told me that all the bagged spinach in Christendom was recalled. Guess who ate spinach salads--guess who ate spinach salads RIGHTEOUSLY, thinking she was doing something that fell under the heading of Self-Care? How freaking ironic is it that a spinach salad, symbol of health, iron-rich blood, and true democracy, could give you E-coli?

Which you don't have.

I'm poised to hang out with you. I won't be as drunkenly amusing as your cryptically named Friend R, above, but so what? I might have E-coli, and that gives me cachet.

When do you find out if you get the job? I'm hoping you get a different one, because your boss is psychotic, and I think you have enough material, already.