Yesterday, my husband booked our flight to L.A. for the beginning of July. The four of us (me, Seth, River and Ahleia) have done a bunch of car trips down to Orange Beach to visit my in-laws but never have the 4 of us gotten on a plane together to fly across the country. Seth and I have gone on trips (NY, L.A. and India.) Seth, River and I have gone on trips (only to Orange Beach, though, and never on a plane.) And Seth, Ahleia and I have gone on trips (San Francisco and NY- not bad for an infant. I should sign her up for SkyMiles. I want my kid to have frequent flier status, although knowing my luck, she’d get upgraded to First and I’d still be hunkered down in Coach, munching on some stale Biscoff cookies.) So, this should be interesting.
River has never been to L.A. Seth came with me a couple of years ago when I was pregnant with Ahleia and in typical fashion, my father drove us past every major tourist attraction. WIth him, you have to be careful because if you blink, you just might miss something and if you turn your head too fast, you’re likely to get whiplash as he whizzes past that place or thing you’ve only ever seen before on TV. So, we’re renting a car this time. My husband wants to make this a memorable trip for River, so I’m leaving it up to him to plan most of the itinerary, since I’ve seen (or at least driven past) most of the things he wants to do.
One of the cool things we’re doing is driving up U.S. 1 to Monterey. I’ve done that drive before (and was even able to get out of the car a few times to admire the absolutely breathtaking scenery) and I think they are going to love it. I just hope we survive 8 hours in the car with a 15 month old. She does pretty well for the most part when we do the 6 hour trip down to my in-laws in Orange Beach, AL, but boredom and fussiness do eventually set in. (Actually, that goes for both kids, but River doesn’t usually resort to wailing.) I am looking forward to the drive. And I’m looking forward to the L.A. Galaxy – Chivas game too, so I can get my Beckham on. What is also cool – and here is social media morphing with real life – is that I’m going to meet 4 friends that I made a couple of years ago on a WebMD pregnancy message board. The message board sucked and we eventually went off and created our own phpbb board that we still chat on every day. Our babies were all born within a month or two of each other, and so we’ve bonded through the entire pregnancy experience and become great friends, even though we’ve never actually met. (The 4 women eventually did all meet each other, since they all live in Orange County.)
I’ll be talking quite a bit about this family vacation, because it’s a tradition I did not grow up with. My parents were blue-collar and we didn’t have a lot of money for extras. I went on one family vacation with my parents when I was 5 and my mother was pregnant with my brother. We went camping in the Blue Ridge Mountains in VA. I don’t remember much about the trip other than accidentally sitting on a huge anthill and getting my pants infested with ants. So, here’s to the first of many memorable family vacations!
