It's Only One Day

Have you ever done one thing for 24 straight hours before? All day. All night. Performing the same activity. An entire rotation of the planet spent on one identical task. Perhaps it was a lazy day, spent binge-watching an entire TV series. 24 hours of Jack Bauer, or Walter White. That would be fun. Rewarding. Or maybe it was one crazy weekend on a long bender in New Orleans. 24 hours of Jack Daniels. Jose Cuervo. That would be exhausting. Similarly rewarding. One whole day. 1440 minutes. Now imagine that same stretch of time, only this time you're crammed in a minivan with 3 small children and a dog. Driving. Across the country. All day. All night. All 86,400 seconds. Surely this is a recipe for disaster, right? Certainly this could go down as the worst idea ever. There has to be like a million other things that you'd rather do for 24 straight hours, right? Well, against our better judgment, and defying logic, that's just what we did. A 24 hour road trip. And guess what? It wasn't terrible. In fact, it was pretty great.


Wait...What? How? More importantly...Why? Why would you? Why would anyone?
It was last spring, when Jenny first got the idea. “Wouldn't it be fun to drive out to Arizona someday and surprise our friends there? Just show up, unannounced, and be like Hey, what's up?” It wasn't a completely crazy idea. They had a guest house and we had a standing invitation to come. I liked the idea immediately. Right away, I clung to it, as if it were an inarguable fact.

“It's all set then. We are surprising the Murphy family in Arizona this coming winter," I declared.

And so it went. Our next adventure was planned.

A 25 year friendship

Now, our friends live near Phoenix, but are from St. Louis, and have made this drive many times over the years. They swear by their straight through approach. Non-stop. No hotels. No overnights. Just power through. Keep in mind, they also have 3 small kids and a dog, so their previous experiences were relevant when planning our own. I mean, the difference between traveling with kids vs. without kids, is nearly the same difference as driving vs. flying. They're not even in the same ballpark.


So, two days after Christmas, we were off. The five of us, plus our dog Smokey, piled into the Odyssey and drove 1500 miles, straight through, to the Valley of the Sun. We had a plan. And somehow, it actually worked. It was simple.


Step 1: Make the Journey Strictly About the Destination. This was the single biggest key to the success of our drive. Now, this sort of crazy thinking went completely against our previous travel mantras. In the past, it was always, “The journey is just as important as the destination!” Usually, we would stop to enjoy the scenery. We'd soak up the sights. Really take it all in. Not this time. None of that was allowed. This time, all that mattered was getting there. The only important thing was the destination. It helped that the drive to Arizona is a pretty dreadful one. Oklahoma, the Texas panhandle, and Eastern New Mexico are nothing spectacular. By the time you get to the mountains of New Mexico, you can practically see Arizona. But, what helped us even more, was thinking about the surprise we were about to unleash on our friends. Jenny's lifelong best friend, Amanda, and her three kids had absolutely no idea the Woodman's were on the way. We had, for 6 months, planned a vacation to visit them, without her knowing. We did let John (the husband) in on our sneak attack, just to be sure they would actually be home when we got there. Cause that would've sucked. The anticipation of the eventual surprise was palpable, and it kept us going. It drove us on. Literally.

Destination: warmth

Step 2: Leave Early. This was another suggestion from a different road-wise friend of ours. And when I say early, I don't mean “on the road by 8:00 or 9:00”. I mean early. Predawn early. Pitch black early. We completely packed the van the night before, and set our alarms for 4:30. With the kids still in their pajamas, we quickly threw them in the car, and hit the road by 5:00, under the cover of darkness. The kids went back to sleep, and we got a quick 3 or 4 hours out of the way before the day even began. That early momentum helped carry us through. We would drive all day, and into the night. By the time the kids were ready for bed once again, we had made it to New Mexico. And when you're only one state away from your destination, it feels close. No matter how big the state is. You're right there. You can see the finish line. There's no way we would've been that far, or felt that accomplished without waking up before the rooster crows. 
 

“We can do this. It's only one day.” we declared.

Step 3: Minimize The Stops. This goes hand-in-hand with Step 1. The journey is just an ends to a mean. You cover a lot of pavement by minimizing the amount of time you're not driving. It's quite simple. More time on the road = more miles driven. There's no way we were gonna cover 1500 miles if we were stopping every hour or two. “I gotta pee!”... “I'm hungry!” … “Now, I gotta pee! … Now I'm hungry!” That would've been brutal. So, the plan was easy. Every time we stopped, everyone did everything. Everyone. At every stop. Gas. Whether we needed it or not. Potty. Whether they needed it or not. Boom. Back in the car. Always keeping it moving. Every stop. On top of that, we took all of our meals to-go. Eating in the car not only saved time, but also gave the kids another activity to keep them busy for a half hour or so. Something we had never tried before. It worked great. Other than an occasional potty break at some rest areas, that was all the stopping we did. We wasted little time. We were always back in the car. Onward.

Step 4: Get Lucky. This final step was not in the plan. It just happened. We got lucky. How can you plan for that? For whatever the reason, luck was on our side this trip. The kids were amazing. I mean surprisingly so. Real troopers. Somehow, a 24 hour car trip was easier than an 8 hour one. Heck, we've had drives around town that didn't go as smoothly as this one. Little, if any fighting. Little, if any complaining. Perhaps they could sense the magnitude of this drive. Maybe they were just excited to see their friends. It could've been that they are just getting older, and they are better equipped to handle a trip such as this one. Whatever the reason, it went off virtually without a hitch. There were certainly reasons to think there would be problems. The threat of car sickness was never far from our minds. Our previous travels had taught us that. Typically it's the youngest one who suffers. This time it was the 8 year old who actually threw-up less than a few hours in to the drive. (Hooray for on-board barf bags, though) After that, she felt fine, and it never surfaced again. For anyone. We'll call that a win. Luck was (mostly) on our side. The newest Woodman, Smokey, had barely spent even an hour in the car with us before. So 24 straight hours should be fine, right? Again, Lady Luck was with us. Smokey was even more amazing than the kids. A real travel dog. At times it was like she was barely even there.
 
By 2:00 am we were only a couple hours away in Flagstaff. Since they didn't know we were coming, we couldn't exactly show up at 4 in the morning. "Surprise!... Yeah, we know its early." That would not have elicited the reaction we wanted. So, we needed to kill a couple hours. We pulled into a Walmart parking lot to “rest” for a couple hours before the big reveal. And if you think that sounds like another horrible idea, then this time you would be right. When I say “rest”, I really mean just lay there, not really sleeping. And by “lay there” I mean sort of in a reclined position. Not enough to be horizontal, but just enough to be uncomfortable. Meanwhile, there's a kid's foot in your face, and the dog's nose is in your lap. Then one of the kids, or possibly the dog, or both starts farting. After a couple hours of this torture, we made our descent into Phoenix. Amanda and the kids were up, and it was time to announce our presence.

 
We had made it. Over 24 straight hours in the car together. And, in the end, it was absolutely worth it. Without question. In only one day, we made it all the way across the country. In only one day, we gave our friends a surprise of a lifetime. In only one day, we kicked off our vacation in the sun.

250 Reasons to Love Our City

When this year began, the Woodman's were still without a house and wandering the countryside. Then, as reality sunk in, it was time to head back to St. Louis, find a home, and start some new adventures. After a few months back in the Gateway city, we already started getting that itch. We needed a new goal. A new challenge. Since putting everything we owned back into storage and hitting the road wasn't possible, it had to be something close by. What, though? Short weekend trips or overnight camping trips were fun, but we needed something grander. Something bigger.

Most Interesting Cake: Venice Cafe

Then, one day in early spring, we read about the St. Louis 250^th birthday celebration. Originally founded in 1764, this was our great city's sestercentennial. And since every birthday needs a cake, the STL250 group decided it would place cake sculptures throughout the city to honor this event. One for every year of it's existence. Two hundred and fifty 4 foot high “cakes”, each made of fiberglass, and each one individually decorated by a different artist, were spread throughout the region. A website was set up with a map to all of them, so people like us, “cake hunters” as we came to be known, could find them . And just like that, we had our next adventure.

Best Cake Photo-Op: Kiener Plaza

So, just where were these cakes? Well, to put it simply, they put them at places that held some sort of significance to our town. Historical places. Popular hangouts. Important buildings. They were everywhere. North County. Mid town. Downtown. Jefferson County. Illinois. All over. Some locations were obvious choices. Busch Stadium. The Arch. The Zoo. Real St. Louis landmarks. Others held historical meaning. Old churches. Schools. Sites where important events occurred.  Some places were local favorites that were actually chosen in a public vote. Restaurants. Parks. Museums. A wide variety of locations were selected. A perfect sampling of what makes our city great.

Coolest Place The Kids Want To Revisit: Bellefontaine Cemetery

We started our undertaking in early May quite simply. Ted Drewe's was our very first cake. I'm pretty sure we were going there anyways, so it was an obvious choice. (In fact, I think we visited that cake 3 or 4 times this year). After that, we would hit areas that has a large concentration of cakes.
Forest Park. University City Loop. Grand Center. We were on our way. The task seemed daunting. The list was huge. We were up to it.

Hardest Cake to Find: Mary Meachum Freedom Crossing

At first the whole family would be involved in a day of hunting. We'd pick an area, make out a list and pile into the van. The hunt often involved lots of U-turns, making up parking spots, and the kids running in and out of the van like a crazed Chinese fire drill. They would all pose on the cake. They would always argue over who got to be on the top. We'd take a picture, and move on. After the first month, we had a fair number. Fifty, or so. At that pace it would take just the remainder of the summer to knock this out.

Most Interesting Place I Didn't Know Existed: Black Madonna Shrine and Grottos

Eventually, the newness wore off, and the eagerness to go "hunting" wore thin.
Dragging all 3 kids to every cake suddenly seemed more like a chore than a fun, family adventure. We decided to adjust our strategy. Now, only one (maybe two kids) would go at a time.This lessened the bickering and lead to more quality one-on-one time as a result. The outings continued on.

That Was Too Damn Far for a Cake: Clinton County Courthouse (Carlyle, IL)

Ultimately, the trips got longer. Some cakes were far away. (Too far away if you ask me). Instead of a short drive to hit a bunch of cakes, it turned into a long drive for just a few cakes. We remained undeterred. Our quest moved on. Somewhere along the way, the idea of bribing them with sweets came into play. 
"Who wants to go cake hunting today?"....
"Can we get a treat?"
 Luckily some cakes were at places that offered such a tasty reward. Serendipity for ice cream. Sweetology for cupcakes. Crown Candy. It kept  them motivated.

WTF? Artwork Award: Six Flags (zoo animals?)

As we started posting pictures of our cakes, others became interested in our adventure. Soon, other families wanted to join us on some cake hunting expeditions. The Murphy's. The De La Cruz family. The Schoenborn's. The Rummel-Winfreys. All made appearances in cake pics. Other family members would also tag along occasionally. Big sister Haley, their cousin Joaquin, and even a visiting Aunt Kelly made it into a cake photo-op.

Summer turned to fall, and fall into winter, and the list grew smaller and smaller. Then with a week to go before Christmas, we headed out for our final cake, #253 (Don't get me started on why there are more than 250 cakes... That's a whole other rant for another time. I mean come on, make it a hard cut-off at 250. Geez. And I hear there's even another one being released at midnight on New Year's Eve... C'mon now! 250 means 250!)

Our task was complete. Our adventure finished. In seven months, we had seen more of St. Louis than I ever had in my 40 years of living here. We had traveled to all corners of our great city. Found every cake. And, hopefully, had a little bit of fun along the way.

Now that it's done...what next???

What We Learned

Our travels are over. The adventure has ended. For now. We have returned home. Well, to be accurate, we've returned to the city where our stuff is. Let's call it home, for short. For many reasons; the main one being that we are not independently wealthy, our current wandering lifestyle has come to a close. For now. Not forever. Just for now. I say that with confidence, because we learned some things on this trip. We learned some stuff about ourselves. About our family.


We learned that we were great at traveling. Of course we were, that was the fun part, right? Going to new places. Exploring cool stuff. Awesome sights. Amazing scenic views. That stuff was easy. Fun. Except, that stuff was only like 10% of traveling. Tops. There's still the other 90% worth of stuff you have to do. Like get to the amazing views. They're not all right next to each other. The Midwest and mountain states are vast. And by vast, I mean... well, vast. Lots of vast car time. Mix in some random potty breaks. More vastness. Never-ending hungry children. More vastness. And then, some cool stuff to look at. At the end of the vast day, we still needed a place to sleep. Preferably a place with free breakfast. And a pool. And hot tub. That's mostly what traveling was. It was figuring out how to move the whole family around. It was finding stuff to see, and then finding a place to stay. It was logistics. And that stuff, the logistics, that's what we were good at. Surprisingly good in some instances.


We moved around well. When you consider we essentially had a mini version of our lives with us, that was no small feat. All told, we packed in and out of 25 different places. People's houses. Guest houses. Hotel rooms. Cabins. We traveled pretty light. Or so we thought. We were only allowed one suitcase of clothes each. Once you added in the kitchen bin, the school bin, the toy bin, and the cooler, we still managed to fill hotel luggage carts to the top. Mini versions of your life is still a lot. Even so, we ran a tight ship. With all that moving around, in and out, the unpacking and repacking, we didn't leave one thing behind. Nothing. We didn't lose anything. Nothing important, anyways. Kids losing their crappy, little toys doesn't count. That's actually a blessing. Random socks don't count either. They magically disappear at home. No, I'm talking about the stuff you always leave behind. Chargers. Favorite stuffies. Jewelry. Valuable things. We didn't leave a one behind. We were a well run machine. Organized. Streamlined. Even being faced with a crippling foot injury didn't slow us down. The caravan moved well.

We were resourceful. We perfected the skill of hotel room cooking. Most nights on the road we stayed in and cooked. Armed with our induction burner, and cast iron skillet, we were set. Even though it was way more work, it was healthier and obviously cheaper. There are a fair number of skills we learned to cooking in a hotel room. Always do it in the bathroom. With the fan on. You don't want to be the one that sets off the smoke detectors just cause you wanted some quesadillas. Use the toilet as a garbage disposal. It works great. Also, anything goes for a dining table. Same holds true for plates. We were creative. Practical. Almost masters by the end of the trip.

Surprisingly, we learned we were good at being in the car. For the most part. We drove over 7,500 miles in all. We visited 14 states. Seven National Parks and Monuments. We probably spent about 200 hours together, jammed into our Honda Odyssey. And it wasn't horrible. It didn't completely suck. That in itself is a victory, right? The driving was not the worst part of traveling. It could have easily been. Whiny kids. Carsickness. Getting lost,and driving aimlessly. It could have been a nightmare. But it wasn't. We managed to keep the kids pretty well entertained. Lots of audiobooks. Car games. We listened to the kids album Philadelphia Chickens over 400 times. Let me tell you, it takes a pretty special album to still be enjoyed after 400 times. This, however, was not that album. Sometimes we just sat and stared out the windows. We talked about what we just saw. What we were going to see. We sang. We slept. Sure, some times there was fighting, but, for the most part, the car time was great. There weren't even that many cases of “are we there yet?” Some. Just not a lot. We got good at finding ways for the kids to blow off some pent up car energy. Indoor swimming pools. Playgrounds when it was warm. Play-lands when it got cold. We even ran laps inside a rest area lobby for 20 minutes one frigid day. Blowing off steam was crucial to a happy van full of kids. We learned how to be good at that. Early on, we also figured out what everyone's car meltdown threshold was. It was usually somewhere around six hours. After six hours, all hell typically broke loose. So, our answer, was to keep our driving times shorter than that each day. And that worked, too. Nadia only felt really carsick once the whole trip. And that was coming down Pike's Peak. By the end of the trip, she wasn't even mentioning feeling bad anymore, and she even colored for a few hours. Not normal carsick behavior.


We were great travelers. The gypsy life was indeed for us. We would find fun stuff to do if we wanted. Or we would do nothing at all. We would hang out with friends, or set off to explore our surroundings. It was perfect. Except when it wasn't.


Not everything we learned about our family was positive. The reality was, that just because we were off having great adventures, didn't mean that our regular problems magically went away. We were still the same family, with the same issues. Sibling rivalry still existed. Jealousy and pettiness was still there. Being at a National Park, didn't stop people from getting their feelings hurt. Being on a mountain top didn't exempt arguments from happening. Meltdowns happened in hotel rooms just like they did at home. Scenic overlooks didn't prevent us from yelling at the kids for getting their feelings hurt, getting into arguments, and having meltdowns. No, the same family dynamics and frictions still existed on the road. The same drama still flared up. Just with better backdrops.


In fact, as the trip wore on, some of the drama intensified. Maybe it was all the time we were spending together in close quarters. Or maybe it was something else. The girls started feeling more anxious at times. Restless at others. 'I just need to squeeze something!' they would say. Also, their emotions were running even more hot and cold than their standard level of bat shit crazy. They couldn't articulate it, but they were trying to tell us something. We figured it out. The girls were feeling insecure. They need to feel safe. They needed a place to call home. As much fun as they were having, deep down, they needed a home. When we set out on this trip, it was never meant to be forever. Maybe in some fantasy we had, we thought we could live like this always. Some families do. Maybe we dreamed a little that our kids would grow into these super cool world travelers who never needed a real home. We'd have some family motto, like “As long as we're together.” We'd sell all of our stuff from our storage locker and hit the road indefinitely. We knew there was no way this was going to happen. Not our family. Not our kids. Our kids are adventurous. Sure. You could even say they are somewhat of free spirits. But, they also need to be grounded. Sometimes I forget that. I forget how young they are. I forget how fragile they can be. They are sweet, yet very emotional kids. I'm glad they are. But, with that, also comes the need for a sense of belonging. A sense of space. A home. I get that. It's normal. Natural. They can't feel safe to explore the world, without having stability and security at home.

So, after 138 days, our houseless-ness is over. We move into a short-term rental house soon, and once again will have a place to call our home. Does that mean our wandering days are over? No way. The traveling part is easy for us, remember? We're already discussing our plans for this summer. There's a lot more of this country still to see. It probably won't be a 4 ½ month adventure this time, but it also won't be just a week, either.


That's not how we wander.