Preparation

I am preparing to road trip to Fargo with my children.  They are three and six.  They are champion road trippers. We started talking about this adventure this past winter and they started to collect and return bottles and cans for money.  I told them I would match their funds and help guide them with their road trip fund. 

   

Five months later they have over $150! I will keep my word and match it.  They will be purchasing all of their road treats (usually ice cream or popsicles),  the things they are captivated with in gift shops, and paying for their museum entrance fees.  Below is a picture of Sylvan riding the carousel in Missoula. We spent hours and hours there in the summer of 2007. It was $.50 a ride.  You will find us there again soon.  

I have told them that I want to return to California in August with a portion of their money unspent.  (We are saving for a piano.) Sylvan has come to understand that cheap toys have a tendency to break quickly and, at times, he can get past the instant gratification appeal of wanting something.  

"That is okay mama, it would probably just break anyways," he assures me.

  

I have done this before, and it is not the driving and road trip part that daunts me, it is the preparation. Two years ago when I decided to drive with my kids across the country, I over packed.  That over packing included our beloved Freyja Dog.  This time around Freyja is staying home.  She will be a sad, sad dog on the day we leave.

Whenever we are packing up for an adventure of any kind she plants herself in the back end of the car letting us clearly know she intends on coming with us.  She has been my most loyal and faithful companion for almost a decade.  This is the first, big road trip adventure that I am not bringing her with me.   Freyja has skin allergies and gets ache-y. Not to mention that she too needs love, attention, and tending.   I know that Q will take her on walks and she will have even more love and fun while we are gone.  Freyja please know that I miss you already dear friend.  

                                                      

                                              Do dogs feel betrayal I wonder?

I went to bed last night and lay awake thinking of all the little things I have yet to do.  My sister, Karla, is flying in from Fairbanks on the morning of June 10.  She came up with the brilliant idea of helping me drive to Fargo.  I am grateful she is along for the ride.  She will be a great help and Sylvan and Talia will be able to spend some good time with Auntie Karla who lives so very far away.  We are returning to the place where we both grew up to witness our cousin, Charlie, get married.  There are many other things drawing me back to North Dakota this summer.  Friends and family singing their siren song lulling me back again and again.  So I prepare.

I am sitting at the computer writing this blog while I burn books on CD for the car.

We don't do DVD's in the car and I am unwilling, for now,  to open up that can of worms.  Our wagon is old and does not even have cup holders, much less the pop down DVD screen. Sylvan and Talia make up games involving colors, shapes, and sizes of the other vehicles on the road. Sylvan keeps a running tally of the number of birds of prey that he sees.  We sing, tell jokes, make-up stories, read books, draw, and do math problems.  Talia sleeps.  The road has the potential to soothe us all.  

I have intentions of consistently documenting our trip through this blog.  I also hold the intention of teaching myself Math 34 in the hopes of placing in a higher math class this fall to shave off a semester of school.  

I will be spending the next few days packing and re-packing.  Deciding the essential things we need on the road.  Do we really need to bring rainbow wings, crowns, and swords? What about the bug catcher?  My djembe drums?  Scooters?  How many books and toys? Clothes and shoes for many different climates.  I dislike clutter.  I dislike digging through bags trying to find whatever it is I am looking for in that moment. I intend to not over pack or under pack. That is the balance of preparation I am living in right now.  

The mighty road is my meditation.

The preparation is my challenge.