Nightmare Road Trip a la Uhl

Last Sunday evening, I flew to Cincinnati.  The trip started off perfectly when my Sunday morning flight was canceled because of hurricane Irene.  Hurricane Irene was a category I when she hit us and really just caused aggravation.  Of course, we lost our electricity.  We lose our electricity when we have clear blue skies and calm winds so we expected that.  Since we have well water, when the electricity goes out, we don't have water or flushing toilets, etc.  The electricity went out Saturday morning at about 2:45.  It didn't return until Tuesday evening around 7:00 p.m.  Thankfully, I was gone much of that time and Marty had to deal with it by himself.


I arrived in Cincinnati on Sunday evening and had a wonderful few days enjoying my grandkids.  Marty arrived in Cincinnati on Tuesday evening, prepared to drive back to Baltimore with me, Kara and the 3 grandkids (1, 1, and 3 years old).  Wow, I've never seen so much laundry!  I think Kara washed every piece of clothing they own.  When we finally went to bed Tuesday night (me much earlier than anyone else), every one was exhausted.

Wednesday morning dawned bright and early.  Today was the day we were driving from Cincinnati to Baltimore.  We began to load the car.  Of course, we had a small wrinkle in the plan to leave first thing in the morning.  First, we couldn't find the pack and play.  We did finally find it but meanwhile James was playing in the kitchen cabinets.  Not usually a problem but he left a wire cooling rack on the floor.  I was walking through the kitchen and you can probably guess the rest.  I didn't see the rack and stepped on it with my left foot.  Next thing I knew, I was on the floor after hearing a loud pop from the area of my right knee.  Wrinkle number 2...Grandma could hardly walk.

We finally got grandma off the kitchen floor and managed to get the van loaded and we all climbed in.  Wrinkle number 3...the van wouldn't start.  We jumped the van and got it going.  The issue was a dead or dying battery so we had to leave the van running every time we stopped.  We stopped for lunch and left the van running in the Wendy's parking lot.  And for dinner, it was Subway with the car running in the parking lot.  We did get a few funny looks but we always get them anyway, Especially when the twins are with us.

Here are the mandatory pictures of all of us in the van:

Sorry that you only get to see James head but his car seat is rear facing and I was taking the pics from the front seat.

The trip, which should have taken us 8 hours, took 11 1/2 hours.  Sophie and Owen were real troopers!  James had a few issues and was fussy for basically the entire trip.  Overall though once we got the car moving, we did fine.

Oh, did I forget to mention that both James and Owen are in a "I ONLY want my momma" phase so every time Kara went into a bathroom or even walked to the other side of the car, we had uncontrollable screaming.   Poor Kara must be exhausted.  And, no one can help her.

Like I said, we finally made it and all is well.  I'll tell you about our visit in my next post.