WSOP Road Trip Day 1

Objectives: Finish Packing. Retrieve Rental Car. Drive to Pittsburgh. Keep kids out of apartment during my walkthrough with landlord. “Camp” in my empty apartment.

If you don’t know what I’m talking about or who these people are, see this post.

At my landlord’s insistence, I’d agreed to doing a walkthrough with him of the Pittsburgh apartment that I’d be leaving at the end of the month. I needed to be in Pittsburgh to 6 to meet him, ideally a bit earlier so I could get rid of a few last things. I also needed to find a way to occupy the other four during this time.

I spent the night before at my cousins’ new house, sleeping outside in a sleeping bag until 5AM when my cousin woke me up on his way to work. Then I carried my sleeping bag inside and slept in the hallway of the relatively finished second floor of the house.

The first floor looked like, and basically was, a construction site. Moving out of their old apartment, preparing the second floor of the new house for occupation, and just generally caring for three young sons had kept Jerica sufficiently busy that as of the night before our departure she had not begun packing. To her credit, she got it mostly done in short order and didn’t forget anything important. Still, there was more to do on the morning of our departure, and wrangling the kids into the car proved demanding task.

Before we could embark on the trip proper, we needed to drive to Hagerstown, pick up the rental car from the Frederick County Regional Airport, and then drop Jerica’s car off at the house. Then we could be on our way to my apartment in Pittsburgh, where we’d stay the night. Jerica strapped the kids in the back (the baby has a car seat, while Henry and Oliver have booster seats) and closed the door. We walked to the front of the car, and opened the doors to the sounds of fighting from the older boys. We looked back, and Walter had peanut butter and jelly all over his face, his car seat, and his shirt. The tone was set for our trip.

On our way out there, the fighting and whining was constant. They were bored, belts were too tight, someone was in someone else’s space, etc. I’m sure it will be familiar to any parent, but we had 30+ hours of it to look forward to, if it would subside when they weren’t in the car.

To make matters worse, we discovered the airport was on the far side of Hagerstown and thus further away than expected. This little errand added about an hour and a half to our day and began to make me nervous about reaching Pittsburgh by what I thought was an extremely conservative time to set for my walk-through.

I’d hoped that some combination of human interest, hard luck story, and adorable kids would get us at least a waiver of the secondary driver fee if not an upgrade to a larger vehicle, but the clerk at Avis made clear immediately that she was just going through the motions and not interested in engaging with us as a human being. Ultimately she was fine but easily replaceable by a computer, which probably she soon will be.

Jerica drove her car home, and in an attempt to separate Henry and Oliver, I offered to take one of them with me. Of course this instantly led to a fight about who would go. I knew better than to flatter myself that they were that eager to hang out with me. Anything out of the ordinary is an exciting opportunity for them to fight over.

I agreed to take both of them as long as they promised not to fight with each other. Technically, they kept their promises. We had a nice talk for most of the ride, mostly focusing on the situation in Iraq and the ethics of nuclear weapons (topics raised by some military vehicles we passed, though both kids really like military stuff anyway). I don’t know how much Oliver followed, but Henry is really mature when it comes to stuff like this and asked good questions and generally seemed to get what I was saying.

Then Oliver started crying and declared that he was sick of driving. Keep in mind we hadn’t even technically started the trip yet. I tried to sympathize with him and explained that it was going to be tough for all of us but we needed to do our best. Henry started getting annoyed by the crying so I told him that probably all of us would do annoying things at some point in the next few days and it would be best if we agreed to cut each other some slack. I suggested keeping Oliver’s outburst between us, so as not to get him in trouble with their mother.

Needless to say, as soon as we were all in the same car and officially “on the road”, Henry ratted out his brother. That was the start of a long drive.

We drove the four hours to Pittsburgh through near-constant noise. In all honesty, I think I could drive for hours without being fazed by a screaming baby, I can just tune that out, but it’s harder for me to ignore the older boys being mean to each other. The truth is that they are very close and each is the other’s best friend and generally they get along well and look out for each other, so it’s hard to see them deliberately hurting and upsetting each other.

We made just two quick pit stops at travel plazas along the Pennsylvania turnpike, which ended up being the longest stretch of driving without “fun time” that we attempted while the kids were awake. We learned our lesson.

Everyone, adults included, was beyond done when we finally reached Pittsburgh. Unfortunately I still had a few errands to run. I’d left a bunch of stuff on my porch for the Vietnam Veterans of America to pick up, and there were a few things they didn’t take that I needed to get rid of before the walk-through with my landlord.

I let them out of the car for a few minutes to use the bathroom and explore my now-empty apartment, where they’d be spending the night. Nothing could have prepared me for just how loud and rambunctious they would be. My poor neighbors were probably so confused to hear a screaming baby and elephants crashing through the ceiling.

I took the last of my stuff to Construction Junction, an awesome reuse/recycling center that I’m sure the kids would have loved exploring if they hadn’t been so tired and hungry. As it was, I had to dump my stuff and get them to a pizzeria, where they were temporarily placated until we learned the food wouldn’t be ready for 25 minutes. The last thing they were prepared to do was sit quietly indoors, so we took them next door to a bakery where they could get dessert to hold them over until dinner. That killed five minutes, so then we walked a few blocks around the neighborhood.

Luck finally favored us, as we discovered a playground where the kids could unwind after dinner while I met with my landlord. They had a great time and the walkthrough went smoothly, so we were all in a better mood after that. I asked the older boys what they thought of the day, and they raced to see who could give more thumbs up. Ultimately, Jerica and I learned two valuable lessons:

1. Four hours is too long  to drive without a fun break for the kids.

2. No matter how miserable they are during the drive, the kids will be satisfied if the day ends on a high note.