We arrived in Manitoba last Thursday. It’s where I grew up, or — more precisely — where I started to grow up. I’m not fully mature yet.
The good people of Toyota lent us a Sienna. My son nicknamed it Redman. Then my husband informed me that I shouldn’t shout that name out in the parking lot because it has racist implications.
Oops.
Sorry people of Medicine Hat. When I yelled, “Where the $#%@ is Redman?”, I was simply looking for our van in a parking lot that resembled Esher’s staircase painting.
The day before, we had picked up the van at the Toyota’s Calgary head office. It had only 42 kilometres on it, which is precisely my age. The van now has 1588 kms on it. I haven’t aged that much in the same time. Or maybe I have. I did, after all, drive fourteen hours across the prairies with my kids and my husband.
Aging substantially in a short time period is possible, especially considering the content of this tweet:
I’m loving the Toyota Sienna. It’s smarter than me. It won’t even let me slam my daughter’s fingers in the sliding door. Accidentally. Don’t go all call-family-services on me.
About 329 kms into our trip, I was looking for the ejection button. I nearly convinced my twins our minivan had one. Apparently that feature is unsafe, at least at highway speeds.
We ran over a gopher. It lived. That wily critter missed the tires. It was the story of my engagement all over again.
We stayed the night in Regina, which my son no longer calls Vagina.
We did not run over a gopher in Vagina.
We did, however, introduce a plethora of bugs to our windshield. I’m pretty sure our vacation is going much better than theirs.
Your turn: tell me about the last big drive you did.
You’re welcome to share misadventures. Or not.
Had you hit a beaver in Regina which your son no longer calls vagina, it would have made me chuckle out loud as I am doing at my own self right now because I’m an idiot.
I would share a story about a trip from MO to Alabama, but first I must go check to see if the number of kilometers you mention translates into enough miles that I can call mine a big drive and not be laughed at.
Ha. Of course, of the two stuffed animals we had in the minivan, one was a stuffed beaver.
You’re headed to my hometown (although no longer my home). I have no plans to make that drive (Victoria to Winnipeg) although my husband mumbles about it every once in awhile. I’m ignoring him and hoping the idea goes away.
Ugh. That’s a LONG drive. Go south. You could be in Brazil instead…
Medicine Hat to Slave Lake to Grande Prairie to Jasper to Lake Louise to Invermere and Home again. With 7 year old twins – boy/girl. Gas smell in the 1979 Travelaire motor home – nothing a little duct tape can’t fix! Yay no seat belts for the kids, and if you report me, I will pull them out from under the bench seat at the colapsable kitchen table! July 2 – 16, nope not home yet! Still smiling and having fun with dirty hair and bug spray cologne! 🙂
Love those collapsable tables. The perfect “hiding” spot.
Oh, and good luck with that.
Oh and thank you for Don’t lick the mini van! Got me through to Slave lake! It was my proverbial comfort food when the RV broke down twice and the mosquito’s treated me like Bacon! Enjoy the Calgary Summer! Hope it dries out enough to enjoy!
Hilarious. 😀
We drove from Detroit to NYC with our two year old and periodically we would all yell at the top of our lungs to “get our silly’s out”. He is still doing it today periodically, even on ten minute car trips. Not for more than a large breath, but still very loud and often VERY shockingly. We never have any passengers in the car other than family, so I guess it’s okay, right? I’m hoping this passes before he has to ride public transport…
I think I’ll do that with my tenth graders next year.
Wow, in miles that’s got to be at LEAST 10, eh? 😉 More power to you, my friend.
My most memorable road trip story was DEFINITELY hanging off the side of a cliff in my best friend’s brand new Honda Civic, in a part of North Carolina that even its residents called “the middle ‘a no where.”
Yikes! The rescue story must be interesting.
This June we did the at-least-once-a-year drive from Texas to Iowa and back again: about 930 miles each way, or about 1500 km (almost exactly the distance of your trip).
The trip up went about as smooth as 930 miles with a 6 and 3.5 year old in a minivan can go. We even remembered our luggage.
However, just before the return trip, a tooth started KILLING me. I figured it could wait.
Do you know what road vibration does to a tooth that is in the last throes of life?
We stopped only about 230 miles in on the return trip to visit some friends. During which my tooth got worse. And my 3.5 year old developed food poisoning on the night/morning we were supposed to travel the other 700 miles, but we had to wait for her bathroom breaks to slow down so we didn’t leave until almost 1 PM.
Then either from food poisoning, the toothache, or both, I got carsick. As in “damn, this feels like my first trimester” type of feeling.
And I hurled. But after we stopped somewhere, and into the plastic baggie the gas station attendant (who we’d seen just 10 miles previous) had been so kind to give me.
THEN Oklahoma and Kansas developed severe thunderstorm cells with LARGE HAIL right over the interstate. In my impaired judgment and fear of hail (already totaled out one car from it), we decided to detour in Oklahoma.
We tried to use GPS, but Google had maps where it showed roads that were gravel instead and we drove on other roads that DIDN’T EXIST.
We stopped after midnight by the Oklahoma/Texas border–because my husband had had it.
BUT, on the positive side, we didn’t forget any luggage.
Although my mother’s house did eat my husband’s shoes before we left..
I really need to blog about this…
Give the family my love!
We’re about to go on a 15-hour trip and we’ll be passing through Virginia, which my daughter confuses with vagina. Thankfully my son corrects her. Looking forward to some good awkward car talk. Glad I read your post. Now I won’t feel so alone.
Lol. My 30+ year old husband realized our new home state is not spelled Virgina not too long ago. His co-workers didn’t let him live that down. Ha.
And they probably never will!
Drove to Iowa and back to Az last summer, caravanning with my daughter’s family. We both have Honda vans. We traded off her kids, one 3 and one 6, to keep the peace. Went pretty well. Had table trays, books, coloring books, dvds etc, so they were mostly entertained and not too whiny.
Sent from my iPhone.
As someone who is 1/64th Native American, I am deeply offended by you raising a child who would throw around a term like “redman”. 🙂
Seriously, though, you deserve a medal for 14 hours in the car. With twins. At least it didn’t involve vomit this time (thank you Vivian)! A few months back, we went on a 1 hour flight to Sacramento with our 6 year old. That was long enough for me.
Oh my gosh, I was laughing so hard at the image of you yelling “Where the $#%@ is Redman?” Too funny.
Growing up, we used to drive 24 hours from Des Moines to the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Every summer. I actually have very fond memories of reading books, playing little hand-held video games and playing all those “find the letter” games. It’s not as fun taking road trips when you’re the parent. Or maybe I’m just doing it wrong.
Did anyone lick it?
I don’t know how many times I’ve done the Wisconsin to East Coast trip. Ryan and I tried to do that 17 hour trip in one straight shot. Bad idea. But no kids so much easier. Impressive you escaped with your sanity.
We did a LOT of road trips as kids (four of us packed into the old station wagon with the parents). When we got out of line, dad would crank up George Beverly Shea on the 8 track (super old gospel singer). Even we never did 14 hours together, though – well done.
I didn’t do many road trips as a kid – my parents (dad) had a limited patience and just driving across town would put him over the top! I remember visiting with him in France and driving from Paris to Normandy and back before we had kids – oh, that was fun. We’ve been married for 20+ years and we drive almost everywhere – but nothing more than 300-400 miles with kids. The kids sit in the back and watch videos or play with their phones… occasionally the alphabet game or spud (counting VW bugs with points for colors). I don’t think 1400 miles would be a good idea for my brood. Hats off to you.
The Mister and I don’t have kids yet, but our last big trip together was west Tennessee to central Ohio for his vet school interview. Only about a 5-6 hour trip, but somehow the return turned into 11 horrendous hours as we hit torrential thunderstorms and hail, got lost, almost blew out a tire and had to detour through Kentucky to find a new one, and then drove the rest of the way home with terrible alignment. Now we live in the West Indies, a trip from Tennessee which requires at least two airplanes, so I’m sure we’ll have some crazy stories in the future.
How did you get Toyota to lend you a minivan for that length of time? Seriously, I could use such a loaner for some upcoming family trips.
When we were kids,every summer we drove from Gibson’s, B.C. to Osoyoos. In a bench seat 1978 Ford pickup truck. Four of us. I have no idea how my brother and I didn’t get left on the side of the highway somewhere.
I hope you are recording the conversation in the minivan. Talk about road trips, my wife and I drove from Brisbane to the Flinders Ranges in south Australia and back via Broken Hill, about 5,000 kilometres all up. More bugs than you could poke a stick at although when we pulled up in one town an army of sparrows descended on the grille of our Utility (pickup) and feasted on the bugs, cooked of course. They didn’t go for those on the windscreen. A 100klm short of Broken Hill we hit an Emu. The road had deep drainage ditches on each side and very little traffic. I sat reading the map and the wife drove, I felt the vehicle lurch, looked up and the world slowed down. The emu stared at me out of his huge eyes, crack! we hit him and the vehicle went into a 180 degree turn and we ended up with the rear in a ditch. I asked my wife if she was okay, she nodded. Climbing out I checked the front, no obvious damage to the bulbar (it actually pushed everything back an inch) Lorelle sat staring into space then said ‘How’s the emu?’ Bugger the emu how are you. ( emu ran away at a great speed with a broken thigh ) I convinced her to drive out of the ditch and get back on our side of the road. Two minutes later a road train came past pulling three trailers. Phew. The best thing I did was to make her drive for another hour. I will never forget the *oh shit* look in that poor birds eye. I love road trips.
Cheers
Laurie.
Taking a long drive with your kids . . . ahhh you brave one. The last time I took a long drive with my kids I was desperately tempted to stop the car and leave them on the side of the road. Oh WAIT! That wasn’t a long drive. That was YESTERDAY and we were on our way to the grocery store.
Never mind.
A minivan can make all the difference in a roadtrip. When I was a kid, my parents had just bought a Chevy Astro van and we kids could not have been more excited to be in it for the 20 hours it took to drive from DC to Disney. They could have parked it in front of our house and we would have sat in it for 20 hours, we were so excited to be in it, huffing up that new car smell.
Writing it out, I can’t even believe it myself:
Last big drive: Huz with broken leg (torn Achilles’ tendon), seven-month-old son, & me with PPD that turned out to require medication. 😛
When: Two years ago, last week.
Destination: south of Calgary AB, north of Lethbridge, return, for 2536 km total.
How: Me driving the whole way for three days out via US, and three days home to Vancouver via Canada. Completely inexperienced in long distance, highway driving and never driven in Montana. Super-anxious PPD mind chatter said pretty sure I was going to get us all killed, all day, for 5 1/2 out of the six days of driving. Stopping about every two hours to change son’s pants, and to nurse him every mealtime. Doing 95% of all hauling, packing, schlepping, of baby, equipment, luggage, meals, etc. b/c of Huz’s broken leg & crutches.
Why: Family wedding.
Sounds like the stuff family therapy sessions are made of.
Thanks for making me feel better about being me, Leanne.
Driving with kids is certainly a challenge. When we traveled there were certain rules, the main was, no electronic equipment of any kind. Instead we play games, silly games, but till this day it still works and my kids are not 24, 21, and 18. The kids love are silly games and the time passes fast especially since we regularly drive to and from Quebec taking two of our children back and forth to university.