Take the Long way Home

Happy 2011 everyone! Enjoy it, because John Cusak was in this riveting documentary about a year ago which laid out, in extreme detail, that our 2012 won't be so hot.

Our Spitzner family Christmas was pretty exciting this year. We loaded up my trusty mom-mobile and dove headfirst into the great American road trip. Since our relocation to the great state of Texas our plan was that we would drive home for visits twice a year. Two weeks over Christmas, and two weeks in July for family vacations. I understand that may not seem like a lot, but there are only so many times we can put our sanity etc. on the line and drive 14 hours straight with 4 little kids in the car. We thought a lot about what the "best" way to take the trip would be and settled on a straight drive overnight. Our boys travel and sleep extremely well in the car and my virtually crippling insomnia makes it easy to stay up all night driving. The plan was for me to take a long nap in the afternoon on the day we were leaving to be well rested for the late late shift. We left our place right around 5pm Tuesday, December 21. Our older boys had their nintendo DS systems, and we had about 100 DVD's for the little boys to watch.

Honestly, the trip up went without a single hitch. We fed our progeny the very best Long John Silver's had to offer in the bustling metropolis of Durant, Oklahoma (extra crumbs for mommy, don't judge me). On we went. The plan was that if we needed to stop for the night we would do so in Kansas City, Missouri and split the trip over two days. Honestly, neither Matt or I wanted to do that since it would only guarantee that we would get to a hotel around 1am only to wake the boys up, make beds for them to sleep in, hope to get them back to sleep with whatever bribery, threats, and random shenanigans it would take, pray for a few hours of sleep for ourselves, and most assuredly be up at the ass-crack of dawn with cranky kids who would demand to know why we were not at Nana & Papa's house yet, and then undertake another 6 hours in the car. The idea made us shudder.

Thankfully it did not come to that, and I was passing through KC at 1am I merely chuckled and waved a single finger in the air in defiance of a brain's need for sleep. At 4:30 am we stopped for gas in my old hometown of Ames, Iowa. My mother's side of the family is notorious for their insane hours of waking to start the day, and honestly if it was even a half hour later I would have been knocking on the door of my great aunt, grandmother, aunt, or first cousin once removed, demanding coffee and scrambled eggs for me and my posse.

It was definitely what one would call cold in Ames too, about 18 degrees. When we left Texas the evening before it was 85 degrees and we were dressed for that weather without thinking about the extremely different climate to the north. Only one other car was at that gas station at that unholy time of day, but they were taken aback by Matt's shorts and my sheer blouse. But really what do people want from us? We're Texans now! We had to find the one box from the move that we had not unpacked to find coats, hats, mittens, boots, snowpants, etc.

Ames is a mere three hours from our destination in Lakeville, so we figured we were home free. I'm telling you people, that last 20 minutes was KILLER! I was back in the passenger seat doing the head bob dance and Matt was little better in the drivers seat. We dropped off the kids at his parents' house and passed out for the rest of the morning,

The rest of Christmas went just according to schedule. No really, we had a schedule. Matt used his ninja engineer abilities and undying love of all things Microsoft Excel to create a holiday spreadsheet that he emailed to all parties involved the week before our visit. After using it, I think it was great. We had family time and even carved out time for ourselves to spend time with friends and attend a truly fabulous cousins' night with 13 other cohorts from Matt's family. We even had a mascot for the night, my new friend Slippery Sal a.k.a Dillo the stuffed armadillo.

What started to become clear during our 10 day stay was that Matt and I were losing the battle on sleep. Cousins' night didn't end until after 3am, but seriously who turns down some questionably sober Egyptian Ratkiller or endless rounds of MEEP?!?!?! Side note to Shaun, you did totally long MEEP me even though I was right next to you at least once. But it's cool, man.

The trip was to conclude with our triumphant return to Texas January 1st (into the 2nd, overnight again). Mom and dad hosted a New Year's Eve shindig at their house which ended around 1:30 or 2am and then BAM it was time for a nice long sleep. We left the house right at noon, stopped in Ames again to spend a few hours with my extended family while eating the best cheese balls in the world (Thank you Hickory Park), and set our for another night traversing the entire central hunk of this great nation. Surprisingly there were many more cars on the road on the trip back as opposed to the complete dead zone on the way up. We rolled back into our casa at 7:30 am Sunday Morning, January 2nd. The sun was new and the air was fresh, and I found the whole scene positively sickening.

Seriously, I freaking HATE morning. Especially anything I consider to be early morning (before 8-9am). There are people who will yammer on about the beauty of the sunrise and the soul filling crispness of the dawn, but they are liars at best and pod people at worst. Please don't tell me how splendid 6am is, I don't believe you! I could say the same thing about 2am, but I don't because then you'll call me all sorts of names and my ego is terribly fragile, just ask the countless pitiful contenders I have destroyed year in and year out in my Fantasy Football League.

Overall the trip went about as well as could be expected. That is not to say we're in a big hurry to do it again. Matt and I both expressed huge relief that we don't have to repeat the madness until July. It is interesting to note that ever since we moved here new acquaintances and old friends have repeatedly told me that I will probably miss winter. WRONG. The snow was very pretty for about 4 hours, then it was just cold and dreary.

I do not miss needing to warm the car up for 20 minutes before leaving. I do not miss having to bundle the children up to go out. I do not miss stepping in huge puddles of slush in parking lots soaking my feet with muddy, freezing water. I do not miss the overly dry air that makes my hair stand on end like one of those weird electricity orbs at the science museum. I do not miss being nice and warm in a movie theatre for 2 hours, then sitting in a sub zero car that doesn't get warm until you're pulling into your driveway or even worse, pumping out that dastardly lukewarm air that comes out of the vents when the needle finally creeps off C and you think it's raring to go. I do not miss having to exit the car on the driver's side because the snowbank is too high and too close to the road to even open the door on the passenger side. Nope, not missing winter. I think it was pretty obvious that I was not a fan of the season as my mother in law seemed to be on a loop of "Kate is never going to want to move back here now". She might be right, but I am one to never say never. I spent 29 years in the upper midwest, and those tendencies are sure to stick around. And as I pointed out to Matt, it's not that I can't handle winter. It's just that with living here I don't have to and that is just perfect for me.

Seacrest, Out.