Road Trip: Albuquerque to Oklahoma

The stay in Albuquerque was interesting.  We were awakened at about midnight by horrible winds trying to pick up the tent.  Micah was not happy.  He was sleeping so beautifully when the side of the tent came down on him from the wind.  He shouted “thank you God for the wind, it can stop now!” and “turn off the windy-inator please!”

The wind was scaring the kids so bad in the tent that we took off the top to let the wind flow through.  This worked out well for a while until the sand started flying.  We all burrowed in our sleeping bags and Micah and Zoe decided to cuddle with me.  This made the tent empty on one side, so my mom left the air mattress and slept on the ground so the side of the tent didn’t fly up.

Ali was a trooper.  She barely woke at all through any of it.  She normally puts her covers over her head when something bothers her anyway.  I told her that she got the sleeper award that night.  Becca was up several times going to the bathroom.  She drank a lot of water because she ended up getting sunburned that day, so she just had to go a lot.

Morning came and we ended up having to go to a Laundromat just to get all the dirt off of everything before our estimated 11.5 hour drive to Monkey Island, Oklahoma.   We were frustrated with getting a late start, but we figured that it was worth it, though it meant that we didn't have dirt piled up in the car the whole time.

As soon as we were on the road, we all felt better.  All things considered, we still had a better night's sleep than the previous one.  We drove and drove, and the kids were awesome.  Micah was super.  He slept, which makes anyone a better person.  He quietly colored or watched videos or looked at maps for the whole ride.  He ran when we stopped, and was generally just awesome.  The girls put on movies and shared and the car ride went just as I had originally planned for them to go...except for the traffic.

Who knew that there would be a traffic jam in the middle of nowhere, Oklahoma?  The whole highway was shut down for some reason and we were all rerouted to a road that ran alongside it.  When we passed by the place where all the police cars were, we could see the whole thing...whatever it was.  It looked like a bunch of guys drinking and staring at a bumper...I'm sure it was something different.  No one would shut down a major highway (I 40) for a tailgate party, right?  

Between all the road construction, the shut down highway, and the laundromat trip, we were running really late getting in.  Monkey Island, Oklahoma is really dark at midnight.  We didn't get lost, but we didn't know where to go.  Fortunately, the resort had a 24 hour phone number to call just in case.  We found it, got the kids in the room, and went to bed.  This morning we are unpacking the car to pack it all again on Thursday morning when we leave.  Today we are going to relax and have some fun.