SPRING BREAK = DISNEYLAND Part One

So I finally, with a little force, convinced Dave it was time to take another family vacation (DisneyWorld 5 years ago). I made our agenda and off we headed for a week of road tripping to California and back. We left on March 27 with an open slate as far as where we were going to get to that night. Little did we know we would have a tire blowout, not just a flat, that would require a 3 HOUR delay! We had just passed a rest stop outside of Nowhere, Utah and BOOM! Luckily, I stayed calm and slowed the car from 85 miles an hour to 5 and pulled off to the side of the road. As Dave was changing the tire I relayed this little story to him. All week I had had the thought "check the spare tire, check the spare tire" come to my head. I have never had a flat tire on a car before, so I really didn't give it a second thought until about 10:00 PM the night before we were suppose to leave. Then I casually said to Dave, "You might want to check the spare tire." Which he didn't do. Sure enough he had been driving for about 3 hours when we swapped and after a short 1 1/2 hour drive, we realized I should have checked the spare tire. Lesson learned: I will listen next time. Needless to say, the doughnut tire got us to a small town called Parowan, they pumped it full of air and we limped to Cedar City. Three hours and $135.00 later we were off again.

Our next adventure happened just outside of Somewhere, Utah. Taite announced he had to go to the bathroom and we knew it was an emergency. The next stop was miles away so being a boy he used the next best thing - his water bottle. We were all good with that until he handed it forward and I think a memory from a few years ago was triggered. I am sure many of you will remember the experience I have already had with Taite peeing in a bottle. Thus, because my gag reflex is so sensitive, just seeing the bottle, triggered the memory, and I started throwing-up! Lesson learned: Let the boys take care of their own bottles.

We did make it to Vegas safe and sound and took the kids on a tour of the Strip. We knew we were in trouble when Taite, using his first grade reading skills, asked, "What is a Hot Babes Bus?" Luckily we did not get out of the car until we reached the sign that said "Welcome to Vegas", we took a picture, grabbed a hamburger and were back on our way.

Originally we had planned on staying in a small town called Jean, NV. However, they have only one casino and the only rooms available were smoking. We try to avoid smoking rooms at all costs because not only are they disgusting, but my asthma is a serious issue, not to mention the day before I was put on antibiotics for a severe sinus/ear infection! We drove on. We came to another small town called Primm, NV. They have three huge casinos...all booked. We drove on. Lesson learned: Make reservations if you don't want to continue driving all night. We actually made it to Barstow, California in 15 hours, counting our delays. Also, because we had crossed time zones we had GAINED an hour, it was only 10:30PM! We found a room and slept SOUNDLY!

The best part of staying in Barstow was that we only had a 2 hour drive ahead for Sunday! YEAH!