Getting Ready to Go

Yesterday I was making people crazy, acting like my mother in law. "Do you have something to read in the car? You know we could spend 40 hours total driving." "Did you get your prescriptions filled?" "Does everyone know where their mp3 players/Gameboys/cell phones are? Well, are you going to be able to travel without complaining if you don't find them?" I resisted the urge to ask them to predict exactly where on the trip they would want to stop for lunch so that I could do internet research and find somewhere interesting to eat.

I'm a bit nervous because on Monday we are committed to 10 hours driving time. I don't think Roland fully realizes that that does not mean 10 hours travel time. I'm planning on getting everyone into the van by no later than 6am. We have hotel reservations for Monday evening. Tuesday it is 3-4 hours to the town where my father lives. We will get lunch, shop, and drive the next 2+ hours to the cottages.

Plans for who will sleep where keep getting shifted around. Now that my sister and her kids aren't coming at all, we have more options. Right now it looks like Alice and I will share a bedroom, Roland and Andrew will share, and Brian and Gary will be in blow-up mattresses in the living room. We did buy Gary the tent and thin air mattress he wanted. He insists that he is going to sleep outside. I have my doubts about that. He said once that he knew just where he could put the tent -- he just would need to "dig down to get rid of the rocks." I did try to explain that it is a mountain and it is rocks all the way down, but I don't think he believes me. He also was under the impression that he was going to be able to have a camp fire burning all night to keep away the wild animals, but that isn't going to happen. Last year he closed the window over his bed because he heard some sort of critter outside and it made him nervous. He insists that it won't make him nervous when he is in a tent. Right. In any case, he has it.

I am, by the way, just hip enough to think it is sort of silly that I am bunking with Alice and Roland is bunking with Andrew, but not nearly hip enough to suggest Alice and Andrew share a bedroom. Actually, I'm pretty sure Andrew and Alice are not prepared for me to be that hip either. Still, it does seem silly.

The weather forecast is for temps in the 90's every afternoon. That is definitely hotter than last year, but it is also a month later in the summer. I'm guessing we will be spending most afternoons at the lake.

I bought the Shih Tzu a life jacket. He loved the water last year, but is a terrible swimmer. He was wading on boat ramp one day. He walked off the edge and dropped into water over his head. He was in a bit of panic until he found the concrete ramp. It was sort of pitiful. So this year I bought a life jacket. Brian just got home, saw the life jacket and reminded me about how he wanted to buy one last year (with his own money!) and I talked him out of it. "You said it was a bad decision and now you bought one, so I was right and you were wrong! Ha!"

"That feel good?"

"Yep."

"I'm glad."

I took Gary to a huge used bookstore this morning and told him that I would spend about $10 on books for him. That could have got him at least 3 paper backs. Instead he picked out one large hardback fiction book. I don't censor the kids' reading materials, but I did roll my eyes as I paid out good money for a book from the "Left Behind" series. I think he picked it out to see if I would really buy it, but he insists he has read others and they are really, really good.

Anyway, we still need to

• write a menu and grocery list for the days at the cottage
• print out maps and information for the hotels where we have reservations (Roland might have done that),
• buy a few more things for the housesitter
• get cash for the trip and to pay the housesitter
• buy food for eating in the car
• pick up our refilled prescriptions

Let's see...something else.

Oh yeah, I have to pack.