road trip revelations ...

Yesterday, I braved the open road. Just me and my SUV and 300 miles. Oh, and the girls were there too. I knew that the trip would be a challenge, simply because I was outnumbered 3 to 1. But, I never considered all that I would learn. Our six hour trip opened my eyes to so many things.

I am now aware that ... it only takes my children 23 minutes to ask, "Are we there yet?" And they will continually ask that same question (with slight variations) every two and a half minutes. After 30 minutes, I totally remembered why I so rarely take my daughters on long road trips.

I am now aware that ... it is pointless to try to answer any questions about how long a certain amount of time is. There is no right answer. Whether my children want to know how long five minutes is or five hours, the answer will only evoke crying.

I am now aware that ... it takes less than an hour for my children to request a bathroom break. I know that children have small bladders, but really, AN HOUR?

I am now aware that ... Doodle thinks that needing to go to the bathroom will save her from EVERYTHING. Seriously. She saw a bug which caused her to scream and scream that she was going to pee her pants immediately. Then the bug disappeared. And suddenly she no longer needed to go. Interesting. Then when I called her on it, she looked at me like I had two heads.

I am now aware that ... going to a public restroom with three children aged five and under is absolutely NO FUN. Dilly has a tendency to stick her hands in the toilet. Knowing this, I was forced to wear her in a carrier on my back. While I peed. Challenging to say the least. Add that to the fact that Dizzle and Doodle were constantly fighting about who got to pee first and I'm sure you can imagine how enjoyable our three bathroom breaks were.

I am now aware that ... I have the only children who will not sleep (even for 10 minutes) during a six hour car ride. Not even Dilly. What's up with that?

I am now aware that ... you can get an ungodly amount of food at Taco Bell for $10. We ordered four cheese roll ups, two fresco bean burritos, three milks, and a diet coke. And had I let the girls order the lemonade instead of milk, we would have saved $3.

I am now aware that ... I am a port-o-john magnet. At one point, I was boxed in by three trucks carrying port-o-johns. The weird thing was that they all entered the highway at different locations.

I am now aware that ... Garmin traffic reports are 100% inaccurate. I had a traffic warning on my screen for the entire duration of my trip. The road was even highlighted to indicate a current delay, yet I didn't hit traffic at all during the "delay areas." But, a car explodes and shuts down all lanes bringing traffic to a standstill and I get zero warning. Why does that happen?

Needless to say, our road trip was an adventure. I can only imagine what kind of revelations I'll have on the ride back ...

driving for dummies ...

Back in April, I got a speeding ticket. My first ticket EVER. I was so mad. Even if I totally deserved it. Fortunately, rather than paying the fine, I was able to go to driving school (which only cost about $30 less than paying the fine - not really sure how that makes sense).

Anyway, I decided that Saturday was going to be the day. But rather than sitting in a classroom for eight hours (and having to figure out the whole feeding Dilly thing), I had the brilliant idea of taking the course online. Or at least I thought it was brilliant. I had figured that I would read through the material (in much less than eight hours) then fly through the test. But no. It couldn't be that simple.

Instead, the online course had a timer, meaning it would take me every second of that eight hours to get through the material. FANTASTIC. And seeing that it never took me more than half of the allotted time per section to actually read everything, I wasted A LOT of time. Oh, and did I mention that when I finished the eight hours, I couldn't actually take the test? That I had to go to a testing center to do that? Yippee! (Note: I took the test in about 5 minutes. And scored a 96%. And if it had been allowed, I could have passed that test without sitting through the course.)

Back to my point. Now I am sure you are saying to yourself, "Well, you could have just gotten up once you read everything and let the timer count down." And you would be completely wrong. Because that sneaky course would ask random security questions every few minutes to make sure that you were in fact still sitting in front of the computer. Which meant I couldn't go anywhere that I couldn't still see the computer screen. But I guess there is a bright side. My bedroom is now spotless. And I learned a few interesting facts. Facts that I am dying to share with you now.

1. An exact quote. "The bicycle lane is for bicycles. Pretty obvious." (Are they trying to call me an idiot in some backwards kind of way?)

2. Another quote. "There is no trick to driving. All you need to do is pay attention." (Again, are they trying to insult me?)

3. The best defensive driving technique for dealing with large vehicles is to stay away from them.

4. "If driving in poor conditions that are deteriorating, pull to the side of the road, preferably to the other side of the guard rail." Huh? When is that even possible?

5. The best way to avoid drinking and driving is not to drink and drive. (Thank you Captain Obvious!) The second best way to avoid drinking and driving is to drink at home. That way you don't need to drive home! (Yeah! Let's all sit at home and drink it up!)

6. You can get a ticket for driving through a green light. Seriously, it's true. If you do not take the proper precautions when going through an intersection. You can get a ticket.

7. You do not need a license to drive a moped. But if your license has been revoked, it is illegal to drive a moped. (Really? Does that make sense?)

So, as you can see, I learned a lot of useful information ...