Monday, November 5, 2007

Road Trip- 2007

The Departure

We recently took the kids, yes all three, on a road trip to Florida to visit my parents and of course Mickey Mouse. You’re probably thinking, “What was she thinking driving 1100 miles for 20 hours with three toddlers and a husband (who counts as a 4th toddler at times)?”

We started our adventure at 4am. We wanted to beat the Jersey turnpike traffic. Normally my husband has only one rule while we’re on a road trip.

I’m not allowed to drive unattended, navigationally speaking. Apparently, I inherited my Nonnie’s sense of direction, who once decided to follow a car with a Florida license plate, because she was going to Fl, and ended up in Michigan. I too seem to suffer a serious deficiency when it comes to sense of direction.

But this trip seemed to pose an odd situation. My husband went to a college football game the night before and, since he only got home two hours prior to our departure; he was in no condition to drive. In other words, he needed a nap. So naturally I assumed I was going to drive the first leg of the trip. And we all know what they say about ASSUME.

My husband’s response to my suggestion of driving was less than enthusiastic. But I assured him that with our new GPS device that it would be virtually impossible to get lost. I just put in our destination and let my cool new gadget lead the way. So with the whole navigation issue resolve, I told him to take a nap that me and Navman had it under control.

So my hubby slipped into a nice cozy slumber passing thunderous zzzz’s along the way.

Suddenly I felt my control quickly slip away. We hit the Jersey turnpike and there were so many lanes and so many exits that I got confused by Mr. Navman’s directions and got off on to the wrong route. Instantly, Mr. Navman picked up on my mistake and quickly corrected my error, “Please perform a U-Turn as soon as possible.”

Uh-oh.

Okay, I told my self not to panic that Mr. Navman would redirect me. But it just kept chanting, “Please perform a U-Turn as soon as possible.” I needed to find an off ramp and quick so I could turn around and get going in the right direction before my husband woke up. “Please perform a U-Turn as soon as possible,” was starting to become Mr. Navman’s mantra. There was no off ramp and sight, so I just kept driving until the darn contraption’s hymn woke up my husband, the bear, next to me.

“Why is the GPS saying to perform a U-Turn?” grumbled the bear.

“I think I missed the exit for the Jersey turnpike,” I said timidly.

The bear sat upright and turned to me with a fierce growl, “You THINK you missed the exit? Where are we?”

“Okay, I definitely missed the exit. And I’m not sure where we are. I was hoping to find an off ramp and turn around before you woke up, but I’ve been driving for 11 miles with no signs of away to turn around.”

The next bit of exchange between me and the bear I’ll leave to your imagination, but it wasn’t pretty. We eventually got turnaround and heading in the right direction. Needless to say that was the end of my unsupervised driving for the rest of the trip.
Stay tuned for more of Road Trip-2007!