A quick weekend visit . . .

As I type, we are on our way to Kentucky to visit family for the holidays. What an adventure riding in the car with my three children for about 5 hours so far. (That's actually one more hour than I slept last night.) It's been over a year since we've made this trek and I forgot what a drama it is, even with DVDs, it's still a challenge. We did stop in Indianapolis to go to the Colts store. Circle Center Mall was crazy . . . so many people were there do their Christmas shopping. My kids are simply not very well behaved in places like this. Dustin had a fairly major meltdown in the Colt’s store and it culminated in him laying on the floor near the jerseys howling about not wanting to do what I asked. Nice.

Anyhoo, we are back on the road and we just passed an old converted school bus. It was painted in Colt's colors, had emblems all over it and was filled with about a dozen or more fans in jerseys and sweatshirts. Apparently they are heading down to Tennessee for tomorrow's game. Harrison said :

"Mommy, look! A Colt's bus. It takes the Colts to school."

Another Colt's moment was when, what I'm assuming is a half drunk man shouted "WOMAN! Alright! Go Colts!" At me as I was getting out of our van at a rest stop. Our van has a large Colt's horseshoe on the hood. He was also headed to Nashville for the game tomorrow as he cordially shouted to me also.

Another road trip funny . . . Robert just pointed out a deer that was laying near the side of the road. I was busy reading (Messiah of Morris Avenue - which by the way is SUPER) and I wasn't paying much attention. I didn't want him to think I wasn't listening to him so I responded by saying, "Dead?" And he said, " Well, it was laying near the road feet out and legs stiff. I didn't have much time for a diagnosis, but I'm pretty sure it was dead."

Smart Ass.

Okay, now I've heard it all. We had convinced he kids to look for farm animals as we traveled the last leg of our trip through rural Kentucky on 31W. Thinking maybe they would stop fighting, touching each other and wailing. The kids were shouting out the animals they saw which included cows, horses, llamas, buffalo, chickens and dogs. (Harrison even mentioned a dead skunk in the street) Dustin said the cows were eating real food. Robert made the smart-alek comment about "plastic food" that followed naturally. Dustin started naming foods cows eat and Robert asked if they ate cow eggs. Dustin said, "Cows don't hatch, they get born-ed out of the mother's butt." I nearly lost it. Then he adds, "The doctor has to reach in their butts to help them get born-ed. But he does use a really big glove"

Okay, maybe a little too much Animal Planet for him. Hopefully it was animal planet . . .

It is now late in the evening. We got to visit with Robert's sister before she had to go to work at a Western Kentucky Hilltoppers basketball game. And then we invaded Granny Wanda's house. After we spilled our drinks, ran through the house scaring her poor dog, Precious, half to death and spun around in her swivel rocking chair 379 rotations, we went shopping. I'm not sure I'll return to that store ever again. I think they probably have our security camera pictures already printed and posted on all the registers as suspected terrorists.

Dustin began our trip by taking off through the parking lot from Robert. He then jumped up and down screaming that he had to "PEE" in the toy section, had a holy conniption fit in the shoe section, hollered about calling the cops in the juice isle, laid on the floor in the frozen food isle refusing to walk near me as I had asked and then told me to shut-up several times on the way to the register quite loudly. Nice trip. Pleasant experience.

I'm heading to bed. I deserve it!

More Stories from the road . . .

Sunday, we spent our day hanging out with Aunt Teresa and her grandkids. We had a nice visit. The kids really enjoyed themselves and the family was shocked at how big they have gotten. Dustin was good off and on. We went to Granny Wanda's house and the kids wanted to go to the field to see the cows. So off we went into the frigid weather to stand near the cows for some photos. Unfortunately John, mom's significant other, got a new farm pup for his bithday. Her name was Molly and she thought she would help by herding the cows AWAY from the kids. Nice job Molly. After walking way into the fields all the while keeping an eagle eye out for McCartney NOT to step in cow poop, I felt that my frozen ears would fall off the side of my head. Finally I gave up and turned around. I think Harrison was channeling Miami Dolphin's old running back Mercury Morris running through the field avoiding cow patties. Instead of walking directly between two cow patties he would zig zag through a whole row of them and keep on running. It was hysterical. Robert took the kids to the barn to see the chickens and I went inside to warm up.

Right now we are heading towards Elizabethtown on 61. We came across totally stopped traffic on I65 at Sonora and pulled into a truck stop to use the restroom. There were so many Colt's fans pulled into the stop that it looked like we were tailgating at a Colts football game. We decided to follow a guy from Louisville on an alternate route since apparently there was a pretty serious accident on 65.

The guy is flying through the country roads and as we came over a hill and around a curve there was something quite large in the road. As we passed it you could tell it was a refrigerator box all folded over and squashed.Here was the exchange :

Robert said "Whoa"

Dustin asked "What was that?"

I said, "Box"

Dustin said, "Dead box?"

Too funny!

Success! We are now back on I65 and heading back toward Indiana. I'm gonna be beat at work tomorrow, but all in all it was a nice visit.