Tour de Tejas, Day 1

We are on the road to TX, and I thought I'd blog as we go, so here's day 1:

Day one:
6:00am The boys are up. Time to wake up and get finished packing.

8:30am We are officially on the road.

8:40am The ipod stops working.

9:00am We rig up the DC to AC power inverter to the computer, and play music directly from the computer through the speakers. Matt points out that the power is being converted from DC to AC, then through the computer’s cord back to DC. There are a lot of wires, and a computer in my lap. Not ideal. Hopefully there is a Best Buy in Huntsville.

9:20am Liam asks if we are still in Tennessee, and announces that his bottom hurts from sitting too long. Inauspicious.

9:25am We have a family conversation about hot pants.

9:36am Liam: Are we almost in Mississippi? No, Liam, we have to get to Alabama first. We’re going to spend most of the day in Alabama. Liam: I don’t want to spend the day in Alabama!!!!!

9:50am Liam reaffirms that his bottom is still hurting from sitting too long.

9:54am We enter Alabama. Finn points to the right and says, “There’s Mississippi.” I wish I could write it the way he says it, because it’s really cute. There is a big rocket at the Alabama welcome center. Liam is quite impressed. We learn it is a Saturn 1B, predecessor to the Saturn V that took the Apollo mission to the moon. Liam is also quite pleased with the Huntsville Space center brochure he acquires. Fortunately, he is too young to know to ask if we can go there.

10:30am The snackgates have opened. What began with a mid-morning snack of pretzels has now become pretzels, bananas, and dried blueberries. So far. The boys are now officially eating their way through Alabama.

11:30am Finn announces he is hungry, starts crying about wanting Liam’s space center brochure, and promptly falls asleep. Now we need to find a place to picnic in Birmingham. The Alabama adventure had looked promising, but it turns out to be a small amusement park, closed for the season. Good thing the boys were asleep, or they would have cried about it.

12:00pm No luck in Birmingham, but we find the Tannenhill Ironworks State Park on the way to Tuscaloosa. What a treasure! We have a picnic, a great little hike to the furnace works, and then learn all about iron smelting and the Civil War in the museum. Of course, the fact that Matt appears to have lost all of our travel money at the last rest stop makes it a bit less pleasant, as does Finn’s large splinter, but there you go.

2:30pm On the road again. The boys are having fun with their leappads and definitely not napping. Still no Best Buy or place to fix the ipod, but there is peace in the car.

3:30pm Liam napped and Finn was somewhat quiet. Upon waking, snacktime resumed, and we listened to some music.

4:30pm Almost there. We paased a sign for Pachuta, and somehow Matt and I started to sing Pachuta, Jamaica, ooh I wanna take ya to Bermuda, Bahama. Etc. Finn really enjoyed the “Bermuda, Bahama” part and started saying, “Babuda, Bobo, bathtub!” When we all laughed, he added, “Bob the Builder!” Liam tried to get some of the attention, repeating “Bathtub!” and we had to tell him it was only funny once. So he added in bumblebee, buck and bock. Matt tried to mess the game by saying “Underwear!” (yes, we were all laughing pretty hard at this point without a definable cause). He explained it was bumblebee underwear (Liam has transformer bumblebee underwear) which made Finn exclaim “Pull-ups! Pyjamas!” Oh my.

5:30pm We arrive at the horrid town of Laurel, MS. Don’t come here. Enough said.

6:00pm Finn has a fever of 102. Please, please let this be the prodrome to a simple cold. Here’s to tomorrow!