Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Summary:
We all travel to Salt Lake City together in our big bus and the girls start their fun journey. Scott and the kids visit with family living in Utah. Tiffany and the girls fly thousands of miles in an all-day/all-night pair of airplane rides.
Scott's Story:
We all woke up pretty early – some of us from excitement and some of us with a bit of trepidation. I was feeling pretty anxious. My three pretty women were flying off into the sunrise and I would be Mr. Mom for ten days. I had no idea how well this was going to go for me or for them. I got busy and that helped – which was my plan for their entire absence!
The packing of the van was a snap, with far fewer bags to load than for a trip to Salmon. Everything was ready to go from the night before. There were only two big suitcases and three backpacks for the travelling girls, and three big totes of travels, snacks, and entertainment for those of us staying in the USA.
The trip to Salt Lake City was uneventful and the roads were okay. A bit of rain and a bit of snow, but nothing that was any trouble at all. We listened to some fun songs and danced in our seats a bit. Tiffany was writing little notes for everyone to get tomorrow. The older girls were exploring their travel-puzzle workbooks for fun things to do. The younger ones were either reading or coloring. It was a fairly mellow ride.We got to the airport at 11:50am – three hours before their flight to Dallas was supposed to leave. I was nervous that there would be some kind of trouble at check-in or as they went through security. Turns out I had nothing to worry about. It was so uneventful as to be boring! As Tiffany and the two older girls went into the security line, we were waiting at the edge of the cordon, talking about the huge world mural they have built into the floor. We took turns walking and jumping from place to place and commenting about where Tiffany and the girls were standing, like cosmic giants on the planet surface. They went through security like it wasn’t there – negating all my fears of invasive ‘pat-downs’ and ‘strip searches’. They looked so flustered/happy/nervous/excited as they walked onto the terminal!
I said, “Ok, let’s go!” and we went. The kids played for about twenty minutes on the escalators and moving walkways – until I got embarrassed at their simian-like behavior and we hustled to the van. A lot of very obvious ‘let’s-see-how-far-we-push-this-new-boss’ stuff going on… A quick change for Dallin, a quick call to Uncle David, a plugging in an address into the GPS, and we were off!
It only took 25 minutes to get to David’s house. He gave us the tour and showed us all his cool stuff. The kids liked that quite a bit. Dallin was subdued. David was a bit too much when he was missing his mommy. Everyone but him really liked David’s crazy-hyper guinea pig – that little guy was literally climbing the bars of his cage and doing laps! We decided to go to McDonalds for lunch and play and David came along.
Lunch was fun – the playground was really large and complex. We consumed 60 chicken nuggets during the two hours we hung out there. David and I had some good talks about what is going on.
At about 3:30 we drove over to Velvet & Justin’s house. Justin said we could watch a movie over there while we waited for everyone else to get home. David went home to do some homework for a couple of hours and I took a halfway cat-nap during the VeggieTales show (one eye open, you know).
Once the show was over and Samantha came home from school it started getting loud… Velvet came home from work and Justin escaped to go pick up a couple of take-n-bake pizzas. Velvet and I had some fun conversations, and then everyone arrived at about the same time. The house was now quite full with David, Meredith, Velvet, Justin, their two girls, and me and my five kids. We had a picnic-style dinner of pizza and some really yummy Florida oranges with plenty for pleasant conversation. We made two alternate plans for next weekend when we’ll be back in town to pick the girls up at the airport.
At 7pm, everyone had things they needed to get to, so we broke up the party and everyone headed for home. I put on “The Computer Who Wore Tennis Shoes” and started for home just as it was getting to be twilight. The ride home was a bit more challenging. It rained really hard for about a hour, making it very difficult to see since the windshield wipers couldn’t quite keep up. Traffic was fairly heavy as well, making it stressful. A couple of wrecks made for slow going, but eventually we got out to the city-portion of the highway and the roads and weather improved. That last hour on the road was a killer! All the kids were quiet, nothing on the road (but I had my eyes peeled for deer), and quiet primary music playing... Stoically, I made it all the way home without even letting my eyes droop. I was pleased with myself for that!
Dallin went straight to bed after a quick change. Everyone else wandered around for a while, getting drinks and the like, but they all were in bed by 10:30pm.
I kept checking the progress of the airplane that carried my bevy of beauties as it flew across the northeastern US, but I headed for bed a little after midnight, just about the time the airplane left the border of Maine and started cruising over the edge of Canada.
Tiffany's Story:
Scott and I were both pretty tense in the weeks and last few days leading up to the trip. I haven't ever left Scott or the kids for more than one or two nights at once. I was nervous about the plane travel, too, especially with all the horror stories I've heard about security, etc.
The kids were mostly excited, especially Coral and Jessalyn. We had a mostly good drive to Salt Lake, and got a few new funny quotes for our quote board. Emerald saw a car pulled off on the side of the freeway. "Look, a car fell off the tracks!" she said. We also had a detailed conversation about the Great Salt Lake. "How did all the salt get in it?" one of the kids asked.
Due to our growing nervousness and tension, Scott and I did not have the comfortable conversations we usually have on car drives. Just before Salt Lake, we got in a fight because he wanted to use his fancy new phone GPS system (with an annoying mechanical voice) to find the airport. "I know how to get to the airport!" I snapped. "We've done it lots of times! You can't NOT get to the airport in Salt Lake -- all the roads lead straight to it!"
All of us went together to get our tickets arranged at the ticket desk. Since we were flying two airlines -- American Airlines and British Airways, but our tickets were ordered only through British Airways -- we couldn't arrange our whole flight over the Internet. The worker at the ticket desk was very kind and printed out a new itinerary for me with the correct flight numbers and information. She printed out an extra copy for Scott so he would know which flight we'd be returning on. The kids were very good and patient, staying near us and looking around. It helped that we were there nearly three hours before departure time.
Once the tickets were printed, there wasn't anything more we could do on this side of the security checkpoint. We talked and looked around the airport a little, but I was pretty anxious about having extra time to go through security if there was a problem, and I wanted to get to the gate early enough to arrange for our seats to be together. So, we said our good-byes and got in line. Most of the kids were enamored with the vending machines and didn't even look at me when I said good-bye. "Bye, Mom," they answered unemotionally. I picked Dallin up and hugged him. "I'm going away for a long time," I told him, "Say, 'Bye, Mommy!'" "No," he answered, and clung to me like a baby monkey. I had to pry him away and give him to Scott.
We went through security and obtained our boarding passes without any problems -- three seats together on the plane. What had I been worrying about for two months? I sent Scott a text saying that we had our boarding passes, and everything was fine. Then we still had two hours until departure. Coral and Jessalyn were "starving." They are always hungry when we are near junk food. So I took them to the airport fast food hub, and we ate lunch.
We laughed and chattered excitedly as the plane took off. Even the two little kids in front of us weren't as excited about the experience as we were!
We changed planes in Dallas, and started our long, overnight flight to London. Jessalyn slept soundly for an hour or two after dinner, but was restless and mostly awake the whole rest of the flight. Coral took longer to get settled, but once she fell asleep, she slept pretty well. Jessalyn and I finally slept for a couple of hours before they served breakfast.
We got on the Tube around 1:00. We had to switch lines once. We all cheered the first time we all made it off the Tube at the same time with all of our stuff.We also had to get all the kids and baggage up a couple flights of stairs at the end. Then we walked two blocks to the motel -- the Regents Park Marriott -- very fancy, in the business section of town. There were lots of apartments there, and most of the people we passed were working adults. (No children, no older people, no one who wasn't used to walking a lot every day to get to and from work.)
The closest Tube stop to our hotel was called "Swiss Cottage," named after a famous pub across the street. There was an official in the Swiss Cottage station who directed us to our motel. He had a very traditional British accent, and sounded to me just like one of the characters in Postman Pat or James Herriott. But for the most part, we overheard all kinds of languages and accents. The only place I consistently heard English spoken with a British accent was on the recorded messages on the trains and in the stations.Jessalyn was surprised that the Tube was more colorful and less crowded than she expected.
Our rooms weren't ready yet, so we went straight off to start sightseeing. The London Eye was on our list of things we wanted to do, so we went there first to get a good look at London. We crossed the Westminster Bridge, saw the houses of Parliament, Big Ben, and a good part of the Thames. We took LOTS of photos. Afterward we ate at an all-you-can-eat Chinese restaurant.
No comments:
Post a Comment