Christmas Volume 2: On the Oregon Trail

We left on Friday December 19th on what used to be a 10 hour drive to see Nathan's parents. Since "used to be" went away last April, we decided to break the trip up into a few days this time. This also gave us a wonderful chance to stay at our favorite Aunt and Uncle's house in Mountain Home. They very graciously let us stay there whenever we are passing through, but this time we wanted to VISIT them, so we stayed until Sunday. It was such fun to catch up with them and let them meet their great-niece. They don't have any grandkids yet, but I can tell they can hardly wait. On Saturday Aunt Michelle took me to Walmart, ostensibly to buy groceries, but then she dragged me over to the baby clothes and said "What size is Annalee?" as she foraged through the darling outfits. They got Annalee two sets of comfy jammies (one is pictured below, Tinkerbell), some much needed socks, and the cutest pink dress. I'm sure you will see the dress soon!On Sunday we went to church with them at the First Southern Baptist Church there in Mountain Home. It was my second or third time there, but the last time was when I was a little kid. We were greeted warmly and were immediately welcomed into their Christmas celebrations and worship. We had fun in the young adult Sunday School with a gift exchange, but my favorite part was listening to the choir presentation during their main meeting. I was amazed at how good they were, and doubly amazed that they had so much musical talent in such a small congregation! (My ward is probably about the same size, maybe a little bigger, and we could NOT have done what they did.) It was a perfect way to spend the Sunday before Christmas.

We left that afternoon, despite a very bad weather forecast. The roads in the towns were the worst, barely driveable, but the freeways were not too bad. We had to make several stops because of Annalee. One of them was McDonald's in Burns, OR. Annalee was soooooo happy to get out of her carseat!
This is a great picture because you can see her two bottom teeth! (Click on the pic to enlarge.) She has four teeth now, three on the bottom and one on the top (go figure). We fed her some baby food, used a disgusting changing table, and then packed the poor, screaming kid back into the car.

We expected the usual 6 hour drive to take 8 hours or so because of the baby and the weather, but it took 11! We ran into a blizzard--total white-out--and some really bad roads in the mountains. As bad as the roads were, they must have been better than the open range because every critter in the state of Oregon was trying to run across the road in front of our car. Nathan was trying to sleep as I drove, but he didn't have much success for some reason. I don't know if it had anything to do with me gasping at intervals and chanting "No no no no no!" as I watched the eerily serene forms of two deer attempting to hitchhike. (Unfortunately, this woke up the screaming baby. Then Nathan had to deal with two loud, unhappy women.) Later, when he was driving, he finally had to tell me to "stop it!" when I screamed at seeing another deer crossing the road. (It's not that I don't trust my husband's driving, it's just that it's so much more scary when I'm NOT driving because I feel like I have no control!) Immediately after the deer I saw the reflection of a pair of eyes over the next hill. As we got closer I began a mutter that crescendoed to a shout, "There's something in the road, there's something in the road!" (It was a coyote.)

At the next stop he let me drive again.



I think he was tired.



We got to Prineville, OR at 1:30 a.m. (our time) and met Nathan's dad at a gas station so he could escort us to his house on a hill. For the next hour we wound up and around little back roads, wondering if our poor little car was going to make it. When we got there Nathan was a trooper and brought everything in the house while I put poor little baby girl to bed. (She had had a diaper blow-out.) We crashed somewhere around 3.We didn't get moving very early the next morning. Or the next. Or the next. It wasn't that we were just lounging around; because of her messed up schedule (sleeping all day in the car) Annalee was going to bed at 12 or 1 every night. The next morning we would get up later than usual, exhausted. But the real culprit was the cracker jack breast pump. See, on Friday morning as we were packing to leave I washed all of the bottles and pieces to my wonderful $150 pump, and then packed them all in their very own special bag . . . all of them, that is, except for two little plastic pieces that are VITAL to make the pump work! So yes, I brought all of the big, bulky pieces with me, but left two tiny pieces behind, making my pump absolutely worthless. I discovered this error that night (Friday) in Mountain Home at 10:30. Luckily, they have a Super Walmart in Mtn Home, so I thought I'd just buy a cheap manual pump for $30 or so to get me through the vacation. It was a great plan, but I didn't count on their Walmart being the size of a Walgreen's. The only pump in stock was the same wonderful, $150 pump I already owned. Since it was so late at night the store was filled with stockers who knew nothing about anything in the store. (Curious. I would think that they would know better than anyone what product is "in the back" since that is their job.) I searched around frantically and finally found a beat-up box behind the carseat display that had a $60 pump. Well, $60 is not great, but it's better than $150, so I bought it. I would say that you get what you pay for, but only if this had cost $5. In this case, I got less than what I paid for. While my pump lets you adjust the suction and the speed, this one only adjusted the suction, which sucked at the saaaaaaame sloooooooow speeeeeed. In desperation to speed things up I tried to turn up the suction . . . but we won't go into that. Let's just say, this pump really sucked. (pun intended) So, every morning the boys had to wait for me, and then they had to try to dig us out of the snow, and then we had an hour drive to Grammy Vera's house to see her and Frammie (Nathan's mom stays there to keep Grammy company). They were so excited to see Annalee!It was only Frammie's second time seeing her, and it was Great Grammy's first!She loved to hold Annalee as often as she could. It was no small feat, considering that Annalee weighs around a fourth of what Grammy does!

Nathan was glad to see his dog Taz, the 11 year old Wonder Dog. He lived with us for a few months last year, and everyone who met him thought he was 2 or 3 years old because of how frisky and energetic he is!
We passed the days in lazy comfort, visiting and playing games. (Frammie beat us twice in Apples to Apples!) Nathan's sister Tara flew in on Christmas Eve. On Christmas morning afternoon we opened presents. In Nathan's family we take turns getting a gift for a different family every year so no one is overburdened with gift buying, but we all got each other a little something anyway. We also got to open some gifts we had brought with us. Annalee couldn't wait to try reading her new book from my Dad in New York. Before very long she had collected some very nice gifts, along with some very nice head gear.
It was time to go all too soon. We said our good-byes on Friday night since we'd be leaving Saturday morning from Prineville.
Annalee liked playing on the floor with Pa. We left relatively early the next morning, figuring that the early start and the better weather would mean a shorter trip back to Mtn Home. Oh, what sweet, adorable naivety. We got to my Aunt and Uncle's house two diaper blow-outs and eleven and a half hours later. Annalee had been more difficult on this trip than the one before. I felt so bad for her, facing the rear, listening to our voices and wondering why we were neglecting her. The weather was also a factor. Even though the skies were clear and the weather warm in Oregon, as we traveled east we outran the good weather and stayed even with the tail-end of a storm. Between Boise and Mtn Home (a 45 minute drive, typically) we saw exactly 10 cars off the road because of ice. We went to bed quickly that night and left the next morning without going to church. After 10 days we just wanted to get home!

About 15 minutes down the road the driver's side windshield wiper committed suicide in a flying leap over our car and into the path of the car behind us. (I wonder what that looked like back there.) Nathan took the next exit to a little town called Hammett. Awwwww, how quaint. How totally dead on a Sunday. There was a post office, a closed motel, and a gas station. They told us our best bet was to go to Twin Falls, nearly 60 miles away. We weren't sure we could make it because of the intermittant rain and snow, as well as the slush being thrown on our windshield be every passing car, but we didn't know what else to do. Nathan moved the remaining wiper to the driver's side and then fastened one of his socks around the metal stub on the passenger side with my hair elastic. Things went well at first, but then the sock started to get wet, making it heavy and throwing off the wiper rhythm. The wipers started fighting like obnoxious clownish figures in a cheap puppet show. I was laughing my head off, partly because it was so funny to watch, partly because I was losing my sanity. We hobbled along, stopping every few exits to clear the windshield and fix the wipers when one got stuck on top of the other. Eventually the sock got so wet that the motor couldn't lift it, so then things went a little better.

We finally got to Twin Falls and headed into the Fred Meyer. Nathan bought two new wipers and went to install them while I carried a grateful baby in for a diaper change. That's when I found blow-out #4 (fourth of the whole trip, third of the trip back home, first of this day). It was all over her, and all over me from carrying her inside. I thought about throwing her outfit away, but found a plastic bag to throw it in and tie it shut. I got her in a new diaper and then stood there, holding her in stupefication. What was I going to do with her? I hadn't brought another outfit in with us. In my hurry, I hadn't even brought her coat. It was freezing outside, and Nathan was out there fixing the wipers, which could take a long time. I couldn't even wash my hands because the changing table was untrustworthy and there was no place to put her down at. I carried her on my hip (with her body parallel to the ground, one of my favorite holds) over to the clearance Christmas merchandise and bought a 24 month sized sleeper. I knew it would be huge, but they didn't have her size. As I stood in line with my baby, the bag of wet clothes, and the new outfit, it must have been pretty clear what was going on. A nice lady let me go ahead of her. I sat down on a bench next to dress my daughter. By then she had filled another diaper, possibly to punish me. By this time my brain was working better, encouraged at having solved one problem, so I grabbed a hand basket and went back to the bathroom. After changing the next diaper I sat her in the shopping basket on the floor so I could wash my hands. Halleluia! A few ladies laughed appreciatively at my idea. I went back out to find Nathan making up swear words (he'd never use real ones) as he tried to fix the wipers. I decided to leave him to it. I returned to my bench and shared a piece of bread with Annalee while she sat on the floor in the shopping hand cart. Finally Nathan came to get us and said we were ready to go. When we got in the car he explained that the new wipers fit perfectly . . . they just didn't move. Uhhhhhhhh. We drove across the street to Auto Zone to borrow a ratchet set so he could tighten the wipers. They worked, with only an occasional mad-puppet fight.

We left Twin Falls, certain that the worst was behind us and that now we'd finally be able to make up some time. We got to the junction that would take us to Pocatello . . . the road was closed. Closed! We were less than two hours from home, and the road was closed! We stopped to ask the freezing road guards why it was closed. I guess he was kind of sick of answering that question because he said "Ask God!" (We were kind of looking for something like "black ice".) Turns out that the wind was causing major drifts. Nathan backtracked to the junction and decided to take us on the detour to Tremonton. That's right: we started out in Oregon, got to Idaho, got to within two hours of our house, and then had to go to another state and back up! I'm just glad we were not on some Amazing Race reality show secret camera so that the whole world could see what jerks we are when we are tired out of our minds. We harldy spoke the whole way to Tremonton. It's not that we were mad at each other, we were just frustrated, and the only people to take it out on was each other! In Tremonton we pulled into a Denny's so that we could all take a break. (Especially the baby.) Here she is in her giant pjs, playing with the jelly packets.

I will say one thing for Denny's: in my child's whole life I have NEVER seen a Koala Kare changing station that had bed liners in it, until that day! I was in shock! I immediately asked for a comment card so I could tell them how pleased I was. After a large, yummy meal we were all in better spirits. We hit the road again, trying to make the best of things. When I passed the exit to Logan, UT I almost cried--we were still so far away! Annalee did cry, starting right before Pocatello. It was a piercing, horrible cry, the kind that makes you think she is in terrible pain. We were an hour and a half from home, so we just pressed on. She screamed the whole way (except for the last 10 minutes). Turns out that the reason for the cry was poopy blow-out #5. Poor kid! We were just so desperate to get home. We got home at 9 p.m., 10 hours after we'd left Mountain Home. When I called my aunt to tell her that we'd made it she was amazed--she thought that we'd gotten home hours ago and had forgotten to call!

What have we learned? It will be a warm day in Idaho when we travel again!