Motorcycles & Daycare Day 1

June 26, 2008

It was early Thursday morning when Danna headed to the airport to catch a plane to Arkansas.  He and his Texas friends had planned a golf trip to the small town of Fairview Bay.  As I waved goodbye I thought of all the things I still needed to do to get ready for my trip to Colorado.  I finished packing my things, took Molly to the kennel, and waited for Jill to pick me up.  When the phone rang I wasn’t surprised to hear that Jill and her children were running late and it would be another 30 minutes before she would arrive at my home.  We (me, Jill, Robyn, Ben and Noah) would be spending 7 to 8 hours on the road to Littleton, Colorado, and I really wanted to get started. 

It’s funny how the whole trip evolved from “visit” to “motorcycle and daycare.”  I’d planned to spend time with Emily and her family while Danna was in Arkansas.  I don’t think 24 hours had passed with our itinerary set for the visit, when Emily was on the phone asking me to take care of Carly and Devyn while she and Jared took a 4-day bike ride with the Sentinels Motorcycle Club of Colorado to Nevada.  I couldn’t say no as I had already made arrangements to be there.  So, I recruited Jill to go with me, and we set out on the road to Littleton, Colorado.

When you travel down the same road year after year, beginning when children are small, you find waypoints; places to stop to use the restroom, buy treats, exercise little bodies…stops along the way to breakup the trip.  It’s like setting short-term goals in order to accomplish the long-term goal of reaching a destination miles and miles down the road.  The waypoints have changed slightly over the years as new roads have made some rest stops hard to get to.  However, even as the passengers of my car have grown up some stops are not negotiable…McDonald’s on the way out of town and Walker’s in Wellington, Utah, when we’re traveling on Hwy 6.

Robyn and Ben entertained themselves and Noah rehearsed his growing vocabulary for hours on end.  And after all the required stops and 9 hours on the road, we reached West Capri Avenue and Emily, Jared, Carly and Devyn.

Let the "vacation" begin...