(Separate posts because of how many hundred of photos were taken).
To start, is was Theo's first big road trip. We flew to Utah last Christmas and he has gone no farther than 2 hours drive away from home. I had never bought him a car seat mirror before, so I got one and Jay installed it -- This was one of those projects the morning we left that ended up taking much too long. First a sticker wouldn't come off, so Jay soaked it and scrubbed the sticker off the middle of the mirror, and then he realized the mirror was supported with cardboard, which was turned to a pulp. Jay took it out back and did who-knows-what to get it back together so it would work. The idea of not installing it earlier was then it would be a completely new thing for him to do in the car. I guess I should have done a practice install so I could have had time to return it because of the giant sticker in the middle of the mirror that was really stuck on.
We planned to stay 5 hours away at Lake Havasu. This is a city by the actual Lake Havasu. This town is the biggest tourist attraction in that area and had lots of shops and restaurants and nice parks. The draw is both the lake and also the London Bridge (from London) that you can go see. Unfortunately, it was off-season due to how amazingly hot it was. We ended up waiting until the sun went down before we went swimming.
Theo had fun swimming, but mostly he had fun finding rocks and making big piles in the lake and also watching Daddy skip rocks. Little Foot was hesitant, but eventaully got in and paddled to Jay and me when we stood out in the water.
We also really liked a dog park with lots of grass (I'm sure the city pays the high watering bills from e money tourism raises) and a fire hydrant sprinkler-thing that sprays every hour. Even Little Foot played in it. Of course Theo and I did too.
Everyone at the dog park was really friendly. One man said, "Oh, you are going to Lancaster? Do you like Asian food? I know a really good place!"
We had to laugh as we explained that we were going for Jay's Japanese grandma's birthday and that we were having it at an Asian restaurant.
In the afternoon Jay said it was too hot to go everywhere. Theo was clearly exhausted and would not nap. I sighed and put him in the stroller in the 110 degree F weather. It often only takes 15-20 minutes to get him to sleep. I put up the sun shade for him but forgot my hat and I walked. Luckily there were sidewalks. Less lucky was how excited Theo was to see everything. We walked and walked and he still was leaning forward, drinking his milk and looking at everything. We passed the London Bridge. We passed the fast food chains. I Googled where the grocery store was. We walked there. Just inside the door was a bench and I drained my water bottle and sat for awhile. I went into the bathroom and splashed water on my completely red face. Then I bought us some groceries and then headed back. It was not until just a few minutes before we reached the motel that Theo finally fell asleep. I am happy to say that he slept for 2.5 hours, still in the stroller in our room.
Coming home after our California trip Theo did really well in the car for 8 hours. He did have 1 meltdown: I offered to sit by him and read him some books. He was fine until I did not produce the correct book. He kept saying "Party hat!" really sadly. He was asking for If You Give a Pig a Party (It's a sequel to If You Give a Mouse a Cookie). We don't even own it -- I had returned it to the library 2 weeks before and he apparently has a really good memory.
No comments:
Post a Comment