Well we loaded up the mini van, cooler and all, this morning and took off for DC. My cousin Kathryn got us tickets to the White House Easter Egg Roll so how we could turn that down! Of course Emma is too young to remember it, but we will and we'll have lots of pictures to prove we were there. The entire morning we laughed about how we are in a mini van and brought a cooler of food and drinks (the non-alcoholic variety no less). When did we get so old????
The first part of the trip went great. Other than a brief stop that took longer than expected to get my daily blood test (you know you've been to the lab too frequently when you know other patients by name AND a staff person jokingly says "People are gonna start to think you work here." Sweet peanuts!) we hit no traffic and made great time...
Until we hit the Jersey Turnpike. There is no road more painful and horrific to drive than the Jersey Turnpike. Really I-95 through most of New England is pretty awful. Lots of traffic, low speed limits, lots of cops. Ugh! Of course I kept reminding myself that it could be worse.
In NJ alone traffic and a stop at what had to be the busiest rest area in the US added an hour onto our time. Sweet peanuts! And I only had to talk to 1 person about her manners or lack of manners I guess I should say. Why are people up north so rude???? After we stopped and I finally got my Starbucks at 3pm (apparently there are no Starbucks in CT or you just don't see them because there are NO restaurant signs on the exits to tell you what's there) I drove and Paul sat in back with Emma. She was getting cranky and lonely and I don't blame her. Despite her dvd player, which kept freezing, it must suck to be stuck in a rear facing car seat all day.
MD brought us more traffic adding another hour onto our trip. Emma had quite the dinner of clementine orange, kids nutri grain type bar, a baby puree thingy, baby goldfish, and some of Paul's ice cream while cruising down I-95. Don't worry. We would never let her eat in the back by herself, but Paul was back there to supervise.
We finally rolled into our hotel about 7:30pm (an hour and a half after our dinner time and 30 minutes past Em's bedtime). Of course they told us all their parking was full and we could either valet park at the hotel next door OR park in a public lot 2 blocks away. I took Em upstairs where I promptly clogged the toilet (no poop I promise) and had to call the maintenance guy while Paul went to valet where he was told they were full, too. Thank goodness Paul is so pretty because he was able to sweet talk the nice man at the front desk into kicking some employees out of their parking spaces so he could park at our hotel (and he got to walk through the kitchen in the process).
I stayed up in the room and tried to get Em to eat dinner (thank goodness for cooler sandwiches) except she was so excited to be out of the car seat that she was like a rat on speed crawling all over the room. I've never seen that baby move so fast!
Paul finished up dinner with Em while I went downstairs to claim my free cocktail at the bar (apparently joining the Priority Club with our hotel was so worth it!) and purchase it a friend at the same time. I proudly walked through the lobby with my 2 glasses of wine and went back up to the room where Em took a nice big poo as Paul got her ready for bed.
A sippy of milk and a story by daddy later and Em is out for the count while I drink my wine and blog. Tomorrow we are meeting up with our friend's Ali, John, & Avery to check out the National Zoo and then hopefully we'll have dinner with some of my cousins. Fingers crossed for good weather this weekend!
The first part of the trip went great. Other than a brief stop that took longer than expected to get my daily blood test (you know you've been to the lab too frequently when you know other patients by name AND a staff person jokingly says "People are gonna start to think you work here." Sweet peanuts!) we hit no traffic and made great time...
Until we hit the Jersey Turnpike. There is no road more painful and horrific to drive than the Jersey Turnpike. Really I-95 through most of New England is pretty awful. Lots of traffic, low speed limits, lots of cops. Ugh! Of course I kept reminding myself that it could be worse.
In NJ alone traffic and a stop at what had to be the busiest rest area in the US added an hour onto our time. Sweet peanuts! And I only had to talk to 1 person about her manners or lack of manners I guess I should say. Why are people up north so rude???? After we stopped and I finally got my Starbucks at 3pm (apparently there are no Starbucks in CT or you just don't see them because there are NO restaurant signs on the exits to tell you what's there) I drove and Paul sat in back with Emma. She was getting cranky and lonely and I don't blame her. Despite her dvd player, which kept freezing, it must suck to be stuck in a rear facing car seat all day.
MD brought us more traffic adding another hour onto our trip. Emma had quite the dinner of clementine orange, kids nutri grain type bar, a baby puree thingy, baby goldfish, and some of Paul's ice cream while cruising down I-95. Don't worry. We would never let her eat in the back by herself, but Paul was back there to supervise.
We finally rolled into our hotel about 7:30pm (an hour and a half after our dinner time and 30 minutes past Em's bedtime). Of course they told us all their parking was full and we could either valet park at the hotel next door OR park in a public lot 2 blocks away. I took Em upstairs where I promptly clogged the toilet (no poop I promise) and had to call the maintenance guy while Paul went to valet where he was told they were full, too. Thank goodness Paul is so pretty because he was able to sweet talk the nice man at the front desk into kicking some employees out of their parking spaces so he could park at our hotel (and he got to walk through the kitchen in the process).
I stayed up in the room and tried to get Em to eat dinner (thank goodness for cooler sandwiches) except she was so excited to be out of the car seat that she was like a rat on speed crawling all over the room. I've never seen that baby move so fast!
Paul finished up dinner with Em while I went downstairs to claim my free cocktail at the bar (apparently joining the Priority Club with our hotel was so worth it!) and purchase it a friend at the same time. I proudly walked through the lobby with my 2 glasses of wine and went back up to the room where Em took a nice big poo as Paul got her ready for bed.
A sippy of milk and a story by daddy later and Em is out for the count while I drink my wine and blog. Tomorrow we are meeting up with our friend's Ali, John, & Avery to check out the National Zoo and then hopefully we'll have dinner with some of my cousins. Fingers crossed for good weather this weekend!
I know exactly which rest stop you are talking about in jersey, it is always that busy and I have no idea why! In the summertime its worse with people coming from the shore (as in Jersey shore). Car road trips with a toddler are tough on your sanity....glad you made it in one piece! :)
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