spring break recap: getting there

Ok, so all day I’ve been thinking that this week I could recap last week each day, just for fun, since last week there was no internet access (except, apparently, there was).  I can start today, I thought, all cheery at the prospect – this time last week, we took off for Colorado.

Only it wasn’t this time last week, it was this time and A DAY AGO last week.  I’m late for catching up on last weeks lateness.  I realized that at some point late this afternoon when I briefly came out of the haze I have been in for the last couple of days.  Just a note:  I’m not sure anything has made me feel my age lately like my lack of being able to recover from our bizarre travel habits.

So – almost this time last week, we were leaving.  Mostly what I remember about last Sunday is that it was such a relief to finally be IN THE CAR.  I had packed and made lists and shopped and made more lists all week.  I had baked.  I had memorized and performed a poem that morning as an accompaniment to a beautiful dance.  I spent the afternoon finishing up and cleaning cleaning cleaning my house, because I love to come home to a clean house, but also had the added incentive of knowing that my parents needed it as a sort of retreat while their house was being painted this week.

Are you tired yet?  I was.

Somehow we pulled into the church parking lot, and as always, the excitement of a big crowd leaving on a trip was infectious.  My kids started running around like banshees.  You remember, don’t you? That’s how this happened, followed quickly by this:

Thankfully, though, the shoe was recovered and everyone piled into the car and left.  We drove all night, peacefully, and woke up to mountains the next morning as the sun rose while we sang songs together and pulled into camp.

If you just read that last sentence without a double take then you’ve never been on a trip with Fellowship North.  We didn’t even make it to Fort Smith before the brown 15-passenger van gave it up.  Something about brakes burning.  All I know is that suddenly, the entire caravan is pulled off on the side of the road and about 5 seconds after that every single boy on the trip is taking advantage of that opportunity.  Seriously.  I wanted to roll down my window and yell HELLO!  I’M RIGHT HERE!  A MOM IS RIGHT HERE!  IF YOU ARE IN THE HEADLIGHTS I CAN SEE YOU! However, I chose to take the much more mature route of sinking down in my seat and pretending none of that was going on.  Once that phase of the stop was over, we moved on to Everybody Walking Up And Down The Row Of Cars To See What Everyone Else Knows.  After about 15 minutes of that extremely entertaining but barely informative game, it was concluded that the brown van was done.  Being left on the side of the road in favor of a vehicle borrowed from a friend who lived nearby.  A vehicle that happened to be a Mercedes European touring van.  Which was wonderful, and resembled a lunar landing module, and left just a couple of high school kids without seats.

Which is how we ended up with sweet Bailey and very funny Jacob in our car.  Just what I would have wanted as a 9th grader on my first high school ski trip – to ride with a family of 5 all the way to Colorado! – but they were great about it.  We in the Jones family tried to be great about it, too.  At least those of us over the age of 30 did.  The other ones were busy smearing homemade chocolate peanut butter energy bars all over the entire back seat and each other, and then practicing their shocked reactions so as to be completely ready when asked, in a semi-hysterical scream, who DID this!?

So, that about takes us to Colorado, doesn’t it?  I mean, you can imagine for yourself the middle of the night stops and public restrooms and fast food joints mobbed with teenagers.  It all seems worth it, though, when you wake up to this…

Stay tuned, friends!  More recaps to come!