IT’S NOT ALWAYS ABOUT GETTING MY LEG ABOVE MY HEAD

Two absolute truths about me.

One – I am an extremely flexible person.

Two – I am an extremely inflexible person.

Yes, I know they seem to be mutually exclusive statements, but they’re probably two of the first things my husband or anyone else who knows me well would think of if asked to describe me.

Let me explain.

In a former life (a.k.a. before I had children) I was a professional dancer with a very successful livelihood in the theater.  Even amongst professional dancers, my ability to kick myself in the face during a can-can dance or do a split in any direction at the drop of a hat was envied, and helped me land many a job.  As I’ve gotten older, though, I’ve had to work hard to maintain that limberness, stretching after every yoga or Pilates class and making sure that my leg still reaches well above my head.  Although it doesn’t serve any more to get me hired for shows, it’s a lovely parlor trick and very impressive at the gym.

On the other hand, my parents will gladly regale anyone who asks with stories of my legendary stubbornness and inability to detour from my planned course of action.  They tried their best to make me as flexible emotionally as I was physically, but they pretty much failed in their efforts.

Even when Life with its varied fickle circumstances conspired to aid my parents in their Sisyphean struggle, I was stubborn enough to muscle through and pretty much get what I wanted; and when I didn’t, I had a hard time dealing with the change in my plans.
I’m not much better at it now.

Imagine me, then, on a trek across the country.  Our route is mapped out.  Our hotels are booked.  Our belongings are meticulously packed.  And we’re on a tight schedule to make it to San Diego in time to visit Legoland for the boys and spend Sarah’s birthday at the San Diego Zoo.  There’s no room for variation in the plan.
Add three children, a nine year old minivan, and Life’s on-going determination to teach me a lesson I’m stubbornly refusing to learn.

You can guess the rest.

The inaugural deviation in my tightly arranged strategy came on the very first day, when we pulled away from our home two and a half hours later than scheduled.  This, of course, threw everything off and in order to reach our first necessary stop we ended up driving through the night.  It actually put us a little farther along than we needed to be, so I felt an uncharacteristic satisfaction with the change.

That advantage was soon lost, though, when only two days later our air conditioning broke down in Oklahoma.  I remained calm because the three hour delay wasn’t going to effect our arrival in San Diego.  Even the extra hour necessitated when the tech found a bad tire, didn’t faze me too much; although the additional hour when the tire shop found another bad tire started to bring out my normal change-induced stress.
Back on the road, we made up the time and I relaxed.

Fast forward a week and a half.

We’re ending our first week on the road with Gene’s first century ride – that means 100 miles.  In fact, he’s riding 106 miles through the mountains, climbing to about 7100 feet at his highest point.

The temperatures in Arizona are hovering around 112.  Even the air conditioners are having trouble dealing with this fifth day in a row of unseasonably – even for Arizona – hot desert weather, and there are fans in every store supplementing the automated cool.  There are heat warnings everywhere.  The very young, the elderly, and anyone with respiratory issues should stay inside and avoid strenuous activity.  Gene has asthma, but insists on not amending his schedule so early in the journey.  Perhaps after sixteen years of marriage, I’m beginning to rub off on him.

We carefully plan (there’s that word that gets Life so riled) how to handle the heat, the climb, and the length of the ride.  The first part goes perfectly.  He leaves in the relative cool of 5am and we follow three hours later, meeting him along the mountain route with cold water, a banana, and a three-child cheering section.

The next part of our plan (there it is again) involves the kids and I taking a break to explore historic Prescott, Arizona then catching him a few hours later to repeat the hydration, sustenance, and support.  We arrive in Prescott to find the road through town blocked by the police … for the three hour parade that opens Rodeo Week!

We have no other choice so we park the car and join the celebration.  Watching the parade then rooting on the contestants in the Boot Race while eating fry bread.  I’m actually starting to like this flexibility thing.

After a fun-filled day we head on to our motel in Ash Fork, Arizona, a town so tiny that it only has a gas station and (miraculously) two motels … neither of which anyone should even think about staying in.

We approach the Copperstate Motel, the one with our reservation, with tired feet and the knowledge that Gene is following us with even more tired muscles.  No one’s there.  When I look around to find a manager, everything I see said “Run away as fast as possible!”  Broken down cars, trash, pieces of cookware, rusted out grills, and too many signs of a not-so-pleasant semi-permanent element in the few occupied rooms.

I listen to my gut and we run to the Ash Fork Motel.

It’s less dangerous feeling; but, after asking to see a room before checking in, the kids and I all agree we can’t handle the smell, the dingy threadbare sheets, and the grime in the bathroom.

We retreat to a Chevron station near the interstate to recover from the shock of almost staying in one of those dives and gather our wits.  Luckily I actually have cell service, and call Gene to advise him to ride the extra mile and a half (knowing he’s coming off a 106 mile ride, I cringe at leaving that message) and meet us there.

“Oh, honey,” sympathizes the cashier glancing at my three children, “you don’t want to stay at either of the places here.  They’re really only used when the weather gets so bad that the truckers can’t use the interstate.  Then we have a regular little city going here for a couple of days, but other than that no one stays there.  The closest good motel is in Williams about 17 miles away.”

Seventeen miles away!  How can I ask Gene to ride another 17 miles?  I can’t.  Painful as it might be, I know what we have to do.

When Gene catches up with us, we load his bicycle on the back of the car and drive to Williams.  The Motel 6 we check into looks like a Hilton to the four of us.  Gene doesn’t quite get why we’re so gaga over the clean room, fresh sheets, and spotless bathroom; but he didn’t experience the Ash Fork near-nightmare firsthand.  And all five of us appreciate the comfortable beds.  Especially since in the morning we have to get up at 4:30 to drive him back to Ash Fork so he can start the next leg of his ride where he left off.

The flexibility thing isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.  I think I’d rather put my leg above my head.


For Gene's very different view of the same journey, check out his blog at www.ConnorsArmy.blogspot.com
To learn more about Connor's Army go to www.ConnorsArmy.org
To see exactly why we're doing this go to www.SunriseDayCamp.org
To make a tax deductible donation go to https://www.wizevents.com/register/register_add.php?sessid=1809&id=1056

WE'RE GOING LOONY TUNES!

Driving down an Arizona desert highway I saw an honest-to-god real-life roadrunner.  About ten minutes later William saw a desert fox.  We chose to believe it was a larger cousin and named him Wile E. Coyote.  Beep, beep!!


www.ConnorsArmy.org
To make a donation go to https://www.wizevents.com/register/register_add.php?sessid=1809&id=1056
Check out Gene's blog at www.ConnorsArmy.blogspot.com

IF IT’S GREEN IT MUST BE A VEGETABLE

The one of hardest things about traveling for two and a half months with an entire family in tow is keeping up the healthy diet we’re used to at home.  The temptation is eat the way you do on vacation when you throw caution to the wind, indulge your every culinary whim, and eliminate the words ‘healthy’ and ‘diet’ from your vocabulary.  Big restaurant breakfasts on warm oversized plates complete with hash browns and toast, fries with every carb-rich lunch, and Thanksgiving-size dinners every night.  Not to mention lots and lots of ice cream.

For the first week I let everyone revel in the summer vacation feeling.  After all, we were spending most of our time stuck in a minivan on the interstate.  We needed something to look forward to every few hours.  But now I’m faced with nine more weeks of living on the road in places where if vegetables even make an appearance on the menu it means canned green beans cooked to mushy perfection.

Last night I worked hard to keep my children, who love green beans from the farm stand, from making faces and calling the green mass they received at my insistence disgusting.  Although I have to admit that it was.

Today I was told about a great grocery store here in eensy-weensy Salome, Arizona that had wonderful produce.  Since this recommendation came from the New York ex-pat  who owns the funky motel we’re staying in, I allowed myself to get excited at the thought of broccoli or spinach or (dare I hope) asparagus.  By this point even the kids are excited at the thought of fresh vegetables.

We walked into the tiny all-purpose grocery, liquor, general store with hearts high and mouths watering.  I found plenty of onions.  Potatoes, too.  A few wilted stalks of celery.  Over-ripe peaches, green bananas, and some apples.

“Where are the vegetables?” my disappointed taste-buds wailed.  “We want cauliflower.  We want Brussel sprouts.  We want dark green leafy things rich in iron.”

“Be patient,” I cajoled them.  “We’re in the middle of the Arizona desert.  Fresh produce has a very different definition here.”

I put two bags of frozen mixed vegetables into my basket and dreamed of Kansas farmland.

I’M THE THIRD WHEEL ON THE BICYCLE

I’m feeling superfluous.

Today was probably the day we were most worried about.  Only three days out and Gene would be riding through some of the most barren, arid, sun-beaten desert we’ll pass through on our whole trip.  And even more distressing, there was that forty-five mile stretch between Brawley and Palo Verde with absolutely nothing, not even a rest stop, for him to get water.

He had the bladder, which holds a liter, filled with ice and three large water bottles.  But the way he’d been sucking down water on the first two days, we knew they’d never last the whole stretch.

We carefully planned.

He rose early to beat the desert heat and was on the road by 5:45am.  We were to follow at 7:15am so we could catch up with him around the thirty mile mark, after about two hours on the road, with three gallons of water and a cooler full of ice.

Imagine my panic when we awoke at 7:45am, a full half hour after we were already supposed to have left!  The kids ate breakfast while I loaded the van, but it still took me 45 minutes to get us all out of the hotel and driving down Route 78.

My stress level built with each mile of deserted sand dunes and each hour of unrelenting sun that had passed since he left.  The only thing we went by was a Border Patrol checkpoint, where the guards held back their contraband sniffing dog and assured us that my husband hadn’t looked dehydrated when he’d gone through there forty-five minutes earlier.

I breathed a sigh of relief but raced onward nonetheless, picturing him hallucinating and heading out into the desert on his bicycle to wander aimlessly until finally succumbing to the heat and leaving us to find his bleached bones months later.

I’m very good at creating vivid doom-filled fantasies.

When he finally appeared in our windshield view, there was much cheering and gathering of cold water bottles.

We jumped out of the car expecting an exhausted and water-craving man.  Instead we were met by good spirits and the information that he had plenty of water because he’d found a small place to refill his bottles, and his bladder was still contained half its icy water.

I was both relieved and disappointed at the same time.

I mean, if he didn’t need us today on this most grueling of rides where hydration could really mean the difference between life and death, why were we here?  We were supposed to be his support team, his link to water and sustenance, his spirit lifter when it all seemed too much for him.  Instead he was well equipped for all the obstacles that had come his way so far – mountains, desert, long distances, heat.  I’m very proud of him for how prepared he is for this journey.

Now I need to find my purpose and reason to be here.

DO I WANT TO BE ON TOP OR ON THE BOTTOM?

I’ve discovered that there’s a major decision to be made each day when I check into our hotel.  If it’s one of those cute old-fashioned middle-of-the-country motels with only one story, then it’s a moot point.  But if it’s got even one more story, I’m faced with a conundrum worthy of Solomon.

Do I want peace and quiet, or peace of mind?

In other words, do I want to stay on the top floor so there’s no one walking above us, or do I want to stay on the first floor so we’re not walking above anyone?  In the first instance, we have a better chance for an undisturbed night and morning; but I’m faced with the effort to keep my kids from jumping around, bouncing on the beds, leaping from bed-to-bed (a favorite forbidden activity), and being generally elephantine.  It’s exhausting and leads to yelling, so that we’re not only annoying the people below us, but also those on either side.

It’s been ten days on the road, and I have to admit that so far the selfish side of me has won out every time.  After all, once I’ve calmed down my three darlings and gotten them to sleep, the last thing I want is some heavy-footed businessman or, god forbid, a family with kids making noise above us that might wake them up.

AN UPHILL BATTLE

After they rode the first four miles with Daddy, I packed the kids into the car and took off for our much looked forward to first day.

After an uneventful and relatively level first half, we met Gene in the parking lot of a 7-11 to refill his water and give him encouragement.  To be honest, I was thinking to myself that this was pretty much like every other ride he’s done on many weekends; and after waiting an hour for him to arrive I was wondering if we should change our plans to meet halfway each day and the kids and I would just head directly to each new hotel.  Especially after he told us that he’d stopped at another 7-11 to get water and didn’t need our supply.

“He normally rides 40 or 50 miles without me bringing him provisions,” I thought.  “Why does he need us all there now when he can take care of himself?”  We headed off for the second half of the drive to our pleasant little motel in Pine Valley with thoughts of change in my head.
In each small town we passed through, I pictured him stopping to use bathrooms or replenish his water supply.  I was fairly certain our strategy would be altered by tomorrow.

Then we hit the mountains.

Twenty miles of hot arid climbing with no place to turn when in need of water or support.  Every time I had to pump the gas pedal to put the car into overdrive and listened to its struggling engine, I thought of my husband on a bicycle trying to make it up the same climb.  My husband who hadn’t been on a really grueling ride in months.  My husband who had just spent the past seven days sitting in a car for ten hours a day.  My husband who was 49 years old and not necessarily in the best shape of his life.

By the time we got to our motel, I was convinced he was sitting on the side of the road dehydrated and despairing because the mountain had beaten him on his first day.  I gave the kids lunch, filled up the water bottles with ice and cold water, and we jumped back into the car to retrace our steps on a mission of mercy.
By the time we’d driven twenty miles back, I was nearly frantic with worry.  Why hadn’t we seen him?  Had he been hit by a car and knocked into the brush at the side of the road?  Had he been overcome by water loss and rushed to some strange hospital?

The return drive was tense as I tried to hide my concern from the children, but I could sense that Sarah had many of the same thoughts.

As we passed the “Pine Valley 5 Miles” sign we caught sight of a familiar jersey up ahead.

“Daddy!” yelled all three kids simultaneously.

We stopped to offer our now not-so-needed water and support, and to hear a few quick tales of his first day’s journey- including the conversation he was having with some fellow riders as we drove past on our outward-bound search.  By the time the kids and I had gotten back to the motel and settled in he was there.  But my thoughts about changing our planned daily routine had vanished.  I’ll be meeting him halfway every day – at least until we’re out of the 100+ degree temperatures and the 4000 foot climbs.  And I’ll have lots of water with me.

A SHORT MEDITATION ON ANXIETY

Gene is nervous about starting the ride tomorrow.  Although he hasn’t said anything about it to me, I can tell because he’s channeling his anxiety about the great unknown ahead of him into unfounded worry over everything else.  The car that just successfully made a 3,000 mile journey relatively unscathed (except for the air conditioning compressor that blew because of all the bugs we didn’t clean off the grill) is a lemon that’s falling apart before his eyes.  Someone’s going to steal his bicycle from the locked bike rack on the back of the car in broad daylight in the middle of the Legoland parking lot.

I, on the other hand, am quite vocal and open about my anxieties.

I worry that chasing this dream is going to cost us more money than we’re going to raise for Sunrise.  I worry because the perfect house/cat-sitter we finally found is suddenly unnerved about staying in our house because she got bitten by a bug in our bed on her second night there and has asked us to find someone else to take over … now that we’re on the road and have to do long distance what we nearly found impossible to do when we were home.  (Note:  I can’t really blame her, though, because I’d probably react the same way if I was in her shoes sleeping in a strange house that belonged to people I don’t really know and I got eight itchy painful bites in their bed.)  I worry that, while my husband is going to lean out from cycling 3,600 miles and be in peak shape when we get home, I’m going to become a flabby mass of unhealthiness from driving in a car all day and eating every meal in a restaurant.  I worry that my children are going to turn from caring, fun-loving, agreeable people into whiney, bored, adversaries all intent on claiming the same seat and arguing for 3,600 unbearable miles.  I worry that I haven’t given any of this enough thought, and that all my plans are built upon flimsy ideas with no real knowledge or research behind them.

But mostly I worry that we’ll both be so caught up in our anxieties and our planning that we’ll miss the amazing adventure we’re about to embark upon, and the wonderful opportunity we have to slow down and spend some unprecedented time with our children and with each other.

I guess there are times when a little worry can remind us what's most important about the things we do ... or the things we're about to do.

A STORY TOLD IN NUMBERS - FINAL PART

Day Six

Hours of sleep - 3 or 4
Gushing bloody noses in the middle of the night - 1 (James)
Migraines from lack of sleep - 1 (me)
Miles driven - 285.1
Wildfires seen in the distance - 5
Miles from Mexican border - 1/4
Border Patrol checkpoints passed through - 3
Guns seen at Border Patrol checkpoints - 10
Guns not seen but present at Border Patrol checkpoints - unknown
Feet above sea level -  -16
Minutes spent watching the GPS for exact moment we went below sea level - 68
Fabulous lunches in hole in the wall Mexican cantina in El Centro - 1
Time arrived in San Diego - 2:30pm
Time hotel room will be ready - 4:30pm
Trips to Gene's Mecca (a.k.a. the actual Performance Bicycle store) while waiting for hotel room to be ready - 1
Ice creams consumed after Gene's trip to Mecca - 3
Children in the pool the moment we checked into hotel - 3
Excellent Thai restuarants found for dinner - 1

A STORY TOLD IN NUMBERS - PART FOUR

Day Five!

Time the kids woke us up - 5:30am
Miles driven when we hit the road nice and early - 692.7
Hours on the road - 12
Time zones crossed - 1
Children fooled into thinking it was earlier than it was by crossing the time zone and changing the clock when they weren't looking - 3
Trailers abandonned by the side of the road - 1
Pounds of "Cline's Famous Fudge" bought at "Cline's Famous Rest Stop" - 1
Minutes to consume said fudge - 2.5
License plates from different states found - 35 (our new record for one day!)
Casinos passed in Oklahoma - 5
Dust devils seen - 5
Dust devils actually driven through - 1
Children who want to see a tornado - 3
Children satisfied with seeing a dust devil instead of a tornado - 0
Cars on the longest train seen - 124
Funky diners eaten in for lunch on  Route 66 - 1

A STORY TOLD IN NUMBERS - PART THREE

Stats for Day Four:

Actual sleeping hours I got with Sarah kicking me all night - maybe 3
Make-your-own waffles made by the children - 3
Make-your-own waffles actually consumed by the children - 1 half, 1 quarter, and 2 bites
Hours to repair air conditioning - 3.5
Thank you's written by Sarah while waiting for the air conditioning to be repaired - 42
Thank you's remaining to be written by Sarah - about 125
Cost to repair air conditioning - $1,054
Bugs cleaned off the car's grill which caused the compressor to blow - millions!
New tires needed after mechanic repairing the air conditioning observed them to be bald - 1 (no, wait - 2)
Hours spent in K-Mart waiting for two new tires - 2.5
Food items the kids asked me to buy in K-Mart - 12
Food items bought - 4 (5 if you count the water)
Brilliant ideas conceived in K-Mart - 2 (buy a universal remote to replace the missing one from the minivan's DVD player, and buy three padded mailers to keep the Kindles and Nook in)
Brilliant ideas that worked - 1 (the universal remote didn't do the job - darn!)
Miles driven once we finally hit the road - 347.1
Hours on the road - 7.25
Time zones crossed - 1
States driven through - 3
Temperature outside the car - 101 degrees
Gratitude for repaired air conditioning - immeasureable
License plates found - 27
License plates found in parking lot before leaving the hotel - 9
Wind speed - 40 mph gusts
Sprawling wind farms rotating in the wind gusts on the Texas plains - 5.5 (one was under construction)
Tumbleweeds seen before we stopped counting - 20
Dead armiadillos - 2
Live armadillos - 0, but still hoping
Bloody noses - 1 (James)
Speed limit in Texas - 75 mph
Trips down Memory Lane - 1 (as we stopped at a rural Stuckey's in the back hills of Oklahoma and Gene relived childhood memories of road trips with his family)

A very big thank you to Cindy the office manager, Scott the mechanic, and Zane the owners of Zane's Auto Repair who got us on the road and kept us both cool and safe!

A STORY TOLD IN NUMBERS - PART TWO

Stats for Day Three:

Miles driven - 638.6
Father's Day cards given - 2
Father's Day gifts given - 3 (2 handmade coupon books and a "Hardcore Carnivore" tee-shirt purchased at Dicky's BBQ in Oklahoma where kids eat free on Sundays and the brisket is to die for!)
Movies chosen by Daddy - 5
Movies chosen by anyone else - 0
Hours on the road - 14.25
Hours without air conditioning - 6.25
Number of complaints from the kids about how hot they were - 0 (I love my children!)
Bags of ice gratefully consumed during the un-air-conditioned part of the drive - 1
Mississippi Rivers crossed - 1
Songs from the "Cars" soundtrack air guitared by William - 3
Trucks blowing their horns after seeing me playing with my arm in the wind outside the window - 1
Trucks almost hitting us - 1 (a different truck)
States driven through - 3
Boats on trailers but with no car in sight seen at the side of the highway - 2
St. Louis Arches seen - 1
Rolled hay bales - 1000's
Bright golden haze observed on meadows in Oklahoma - innumerable

A STORY TOLD IN NUMBERS - PART ONE

I started to wrote a prose- ical entry but realized that the story of our initial days can best be told in their stats.  So here are the stats for Day One/Two:

Hours late to start - 2.5
Hours on the road - 27.5
Miles driven - 1,086.3
States driven through - 6
Number of times a child threw up, aka puked, aka barfed - 2
Fill-ups - 5
Dead deer at the side of the road - 5
Wind farms turning gracefully on mountain tops - 1
Wind farm turbines seen on flatbeds on the highway - 4
License plates found in the license plate game - 33
Movies watched - 5 (plus 2 episodes of Mythbusters)
Hours slept in the car in a Pennsylvania rest stop - 4
Minutes of rain - 4.5
Numer of times windshield pooped on - 3 (only when I was driving because birds have a thing against me)
Time zones crossed - 1
911 calls made when Sarah saw a brush fire actually start next to the highway - 1
Rest stops - 7
Important items forgotten at home that Claire the housesitter is overnighting to us - 2 (webcam and laptop power cord)
Less important items forgotten at home that we aren't asking Claire to send to us - 3 (my watch, Sarah's iPod charger - she'll share Gene's - and Sarah's phone charger - she'll keep it turned off unless she needs it)
Women waving to us on the Turnpike - 1

CHANGING HORSES IN MIDSTREAM

So I was spending the day before the day before we leave (got that?  It's Wednesday and we leave Friday) barbequing in the rain for 800 middle school students; and I got a really great suggestion that completely changed the way I plan to pack.

"Wait a minute," you say.  "Go back to the beginning.  Why were you barbequing for 800 middle school students?  And why were you doing it in the rain?"

Good questions!

It all started last year when Sarah was in 6th grade.  My favorite food is ice cream and when I saw that the PTSA throws an ice cream party for the entire school on the last day of classes, I volunteered to help.  One thing led to another, and I ended up chairing the ice cream event.  It wasn't very difficult and everyone had a great time, so when they asked if I'd do it again this year, I immediately responded in the affirmative even though I knew it'd be only two days before we were leaving.  But when the notices were sent out to the entire PTSA, it turned out I had volunteered to chair not just the ice cream portion, but the entire barbeque!

Of course, true to my insane desire to never miss out on anything, I figured I could still handle it - on top of planning Carla and Rita's wedding, Sarah's benefit, and a fundraising cabaret.  And all of this was taking place within two and a half weeks of our leaving!

On the day of the barbeque it was raining, so we had to make alternative plans on the fly.  The kids were moved inside, but the barbeques themselves had to remain outrside.  And we couldn't even move them underneath the breezeway because the smoke set off the fire alarms last time they tried that.

So there I am, soaking wet in the middle of four and a half hours cooking in the rain; and one of the other moms tells me about a friend of hers who always packs for family vacations in plastic bins instead of in suitcases.  I swear that if you looked closely enough at me, you would have been able to see the giant light bulb going on above my head.

I went straight to Home Depot to buy a bunch of shoebox sized bins, and now Sarah is busy clearing toys out of the big plastic bins in the playroom.  Hey, on top of learning to do things at the last minute, I'm also learning to be flexible.