The Navy is moving us from Waukegan, Illinois, to San Diego, California; driving across the country with a three-month-old baby and a cat who's afraid of the world is quite an adventure!
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Using maps to prop the window up. Bonus points for creative solutions! |
Me: Nebraska has boring license plates.
D: Nebraska is a boring state.
And so went Day 2 of our journey. We
woke up in our hotel room in Iowa and enjoyed a carb-tastic
continental breakfast; D brought me a waffle with sugar-laden “table
syrup,” toast with HFCS-laden jam, oj, and an apple. And it was
all DELICIOUS. (Sometimes I use road trips as an excuse to eat
badly. In this case, it was partially this and partially me needing
to make sure I'm still getting enough calories in to keep up my milk
supply for Little Bug. Plus, options were limited. But D certainly
knows how to feed me to keep me happy!) I had slept better in the
foreign hotel bed than I had in my last night in Illinois, cuddled
with Little Bug in one bed while D slept in the other. (They weren't
wide enough for all three of us.) We were on the road again by 0630.
When I drove through Nebraska nearly a
year ago on my way to Illinois for D's boot camp pass & review,
my mama and I were thoroughly unimpressed. Relatively flat, with
road construction scattered throughout that required frequent slowing
down and switching lanes, there was nothing special about driving
through this state. Things hadn't changed much over the intervening
time. D got frustrated by the frequent drops in speed necessitated
by the construction crews, while I got tired of the monotonous
landscape. We took breaks frequently at Nebraska rest stops, most of
which apparently had bad water supplies.
One cool thing I've learned so far this
trip is that roadside rest areas usually have state highway maps
available for free. We've collected maps from every state we've
driven through so far!
Our driving goal for Day 2 was Big
Springs, Nebraska, which we thought would have good options for
lodging due to its location at a fairly major freeway split.
Instead, all we found was a single lonely motel of the variety that D
& I lovingly refer to as a “murder lodge.” You know, the
kind that feature frequently in generic horror movies, easily
distinguished by their florescent signs declaring blandly, “MOTEL.”
Some people might find them quaint, but I just know that I wouldn't
feel entirely safe spending a night in one.
We looked at the murder lodge and then
at each other dubiously, thinking the same thing. “Look,” I
pointed. “Julesburg, 13 miles.” He nodded and we kept going.
When we arrived at the Julesburg exit, we were greeted with a sign
announcing “No Services,” along with another sign declaring that
the next exit, Ovid, would be in nine miles.
Ovid proved to be disappointing as
well. (“The O is for Oh-my-god-there's-nothing-here,” said D.)
And thus it continued for awhile. Next exit, 10-15 miles. No
lodging to be found. Most of them, no visible signs of civilization
to be found either.
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Seen on the side of a big rig. Am I the only one who is disturbed by this? |
The first hotels we finally came to
were in Sterling, Colorado, a town that likely only exists because of
the large prison there. Signs warned us not to pick up hitchhikers
as we exited the freeway. But there was nothing for us here either;
the Best Western was too expensive, the Super 8 looked like a murder
lodge and the Comfort Inn didn't allow pets. We were told the next
town with hotels was Brush ten-fifteen minutes down the road. The
lady working the desk of the Comfort Inn assured us that there were
lots of hotels, right off the freeway!
Forty-five minutes later, Brush didn't
seem a very good option. A single murder lodge beckoned to us from
the desolate-looking settlement. D and I looked at each other, and
then at the sign indicating that Fort Morgan was less than twenty
minutes away. We sighed in unison. “I'm not driving any further
than Fort Morgan,” D warned.
Fortunately, we didn't have to. The
Super 8 we stopped at didn't have a pool and was still pricier than
we would have preferred, but after driving for two hours longer than
we had intended, it would do. We were all ready to stop for the
night.
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All tuckered out. |
Earlier that day, D and I had started
playing the license plate game, trying to find plates from as many
different states as possible. By the time we stopped, we had seen
seventeen states and one Canadian province.
Arkansas California Colorado Georgia
Indiana Iowa Maine Maryland
Michigan Minnesota Missouri Nebraska
Oklahoma Tennessee Texas Utah
Vermont Ontario
Our room here had a single bed, big
enough for two people, but not for two people and a baby. In books
and articles about cosleeping, I've heard babies described as
“heat-seeking missiles,” in that they usually cuddle right up
next to a parent. This definition fits Little Bug perfectly; after
he finishes nursing at any given time, I usually back away a little
in order to ensure that he has plenty of breathing room. Inevitably,
though, I wake up with his head tucked up right under my armpit and
his body as close to mine as he can scoot in his sleep. So, I'm not
super worried about him falling out of bed in the night, but the bed
was just too small for comfort, and I'm definitely not comfortable
putting him between D & I unless it's a king-size mattress.
Instead, I opted to make a nest on the
floor for Little Bug and myself, giving D the bed (since he's doing
the hard work of driving the whole time!). It was actually
surprisingly comfortable!
The adventure would continue on Day 3.