Look for a series of posts chronicling our vacation to Cincinnati. We left on a Wednesday, around 9:30 am. BAGD had time to get in a half day’s work in the basement before we left. We hit the road! One stop at the Oasis for a bathroom break, Geetle insisted that we put Giggles in this chair inside the stall. I guess Giggles did not mind so much.

Our travel plan involved borrowing Mamaw’s minivan, which is bigger than ours. It also has a DVD player, which the kids like. We were stuffed to the gills…pack n’ play, stroller, suitcases, my laptop (I worked a half day at my company’s Cincinnati office), camera, snacks, movies, etc. To ease boredom on the 6 hour drive (6 hours per Mapquest, 8 hours per us) I passed out prizes every now and then. We have a thrift store here that sells toys by the bag. I bought a few, washed them up and put them in paper bags with a snack. I also got some things from the Target $1 bins. The kids really liked it. Unfortunately, it added to the backseat chaos, but that’s OK.

Our first stop was lunch, outside Gary, Indiana. We stopped at the Cracker Barrel. Pookie loved the meal because they brought him a tiny bottle of maple syrup that he could pour on his own pancakes. Geetle loved it because she discovered a new game.

She is really good at it, except once in a while she will move a tee “to make it easier.” She says this is not cheating, its “making it easier.”

This particular Cracker Barrel is next to an Indiana Welcome Center, a huge shiny silver building shaped like a cornucopia. It made an impression on Pookie, he wanted to go see it. He said it was “the future.” He wanted to “go see the future.”

Anyhoo. After we ate, we browsed in the gift shop, picking out a candy stick for the road. Pookie was drawn to a certain toy. He had noticed it before we ate, and carried it around the shop. We told him to put it away, and he did, very gently. We are not really the “buy a toy at the restaurant gift shop” type of people. But after we ate, he went back to it again. Picking it up very carefully and studying it. We melted. We asked him if he would like to buy it. He said yes.

Meet Andy:

A few things Pookie wants you to know about Andy: (He told us these facts several times)
“he has girl’s eyes” (we believe this is a reference to his eye lashes)
“he has no ears, where are the ears?”
“he has a triangle nose!”
Andy was Pookie’s pal thru vacation. He got to sleep with Pookie and Baby Dollard.

We got back on the road, stopping once at a rest stop to go to the bathroom and stretch our legs. BAGD and Pookie climbed a tree. Geetle took pictures of the trucks. Giggles ate some grass. Fine Indiana Grass.

We stopped again for Dinner; at a Big Boy restaurant. I don’t know where it was, except that it was fairly close to Cincinnati. Anyone traveling without kids probably would have driven thru and eaten later in Cincinnati. But not us. Here is proof that it was a real Big Boy restaurant:

yes, that is Giggles. She had to change her clothes. Sitting in a car seat all day makes for weird pee projection angles. She managed to leak thru, with a relatively dry diaper. She did great in the car. She took 2 naps, looked out the window, watched the big kids good off in the 3rd row and played with her toys. Could not have asked for a better baby in the car.

We finally got to Cincinnati at about 7:30 pm. Mamaw and Papaw are living downtown, very near the river. Their building is 10 stories tall, with a roof deck, so we went up to check out the view then got settled in for bed. Tune in tomorrow for details on Day 2.