How Was Your Weekend?

9:51 a.m.

Depart Snake River Landing where we had breakfast with the siblings and their families.

Once we hit the freeway and can see fields with irrigation pipes rotating along I ask, “What was your favorite part about Idaho?”

Cooper: Do we have to tell you? Don't you already know?

Mason: Going in grandpa's boat.

Mom: No [in answer to Coop], if you want to keep your thoughts to yourself, you can.

Cooper: It was playing with Baby Henry.

Mom: Awwwwwwww.

10:12

A disgusted, "I've got pop-rock on my cheek" from the backseat. Mason and Cooper loved the treat Uncle Trent got them at the sweet shop. 

Fudge:30

At 11:30 I decide to stick my finger into one of the tubs of delicious fudge my brother bought for the kids. Which then makes me spontaneously laugh as I remember the midnight meme review. 

12:42

Mason screams from the backseat as we pass the mountains in Morgan. He has noticed the mountain monogram and clearly considers it a welcome sign to the rest of our journey.

1:19

Stop for gas and McDonald’s in Evanston. This was a highly anticipated stop for the boys. They had begged for McDonald’s all week after a TV commercial announced that Paul Frank toys came in Happy Meals. But I had staved them off knowing they may have to eat there twice in one day. But when the time came, we basically forced ourselves to go there to keep our promise. When they got their toys, they shrugged their shoulders and marched right back up to the counter and asked if they could trade them in! Stinkers.

2:07

Leave Evanston.

6:14

Stop for a gas up and bathroom break in Laramie. This is quick and mainly because the gas station is one of THE worst I’ve ever seen. But alas, not THE worst because that honor belongs to a small joint in Wolcott, Wyo. Or maybe Sinclair, Wyo. But for now, I’ll tell you about Wolcott. Remember when we stopped there and it was closed? And then we stopped there again and I had to wait in line for the stall. While I was waiting I could hear a woman of advanced age (you may ask how I knew this, I could see her feet) was mumbling and grumbling. Then there was a gasp, a thump, and the stall door flew open. The woman then began to curse, lamenting with specific disdain the size of the toilet and the stall. The poor thing had tried to sit down on the toilet, which was very small, and had lost her balance. Then her head hit the stall door very hard, in fact hard enough to make the door fly open, as she dropped the last few inches to the commode. I laughed until I nearly peed.

When it was my turn, I found that indeed the toilet was low. With my quads and my OCD I wasn’t about to actually sit on it. But even in a state of careful air chair, I found it hard not to find the stall door with the top of my head. The other yucky feature of that bathroom is that while you were crouched in a position found only in martial arts films you were forced to look straight down the bathroom drain pipe which had no grate cover. Bad situation.

6:34

Cross the Colorado state line while Rio is playing for the second time today.

7:27

After struggling with our rear-seat entertainment system (in-car DVD) I hand the remote to Cooper and order him to fix it. This was met with what we’ll call mild resistance or rather a fuming 7-year-old who shouted, “I. Am. Not. A. Tech. Nology. Expert!” I think it’s time we all got out of this car.

8:22

Pull into our neighborhood. As we pass familiar and much missed sites – Super Target, Five Guys, Runner’s Roost, Safeway – I sigh and ask the boys what they are going to do when we get home?

Mason answers, “Brush our teeth, and go to bed!” Enough said.