A Mini Vacation

A friend of my husbands needed a ride to the airport. His plane left at six-thirty. In the morning. Of course we all rode along.

Getting up at three in the morning is surprisingly easy when you have already been up all night with a rather obnoxious, screaming 8. We loaded in the car and drove off under the light of a full moon. Nobody was willing to go back to sleep, we stayed up looking at the moon and talking.

After leaving the airport, having ridden the escalators in a scene somewhat resembling Crocodile Dundee, with all the wonder and none of the fear, we went for breakfast. Perkins was a quick easy choice and, it turned out, an excellent choice. Our waitress was one of those rare, incredibly awesome ones. Her name was Ellie, we had fun with that, and instead of being annoyed by rowdy, overly tired children making noise and, big, messes she brought toys (chocolate chips inside a plastic cup for 8. How great is that?) and an extra cookie. We ate until we were sick.

Then we saw the Dinosaurs. We had seen them from the restaurant, the towers sitting next to them at least. They had been sticking tall out above the clouds way up in the sky. Now we could see the bases as the tops disappeared into clouds. The sunlight was bright and hazy through the low clouds and fog, an amazingly beautiful morning. We had the park all to ourselves so early in the morning. This time I got to go see them too, instead of sitting in the car with 8.

Next came the Air and Space Museum. The drive over took enough time to get us past opening time. And the kids fell asleep. Just as we got there. It was just outside of Ellsworth Air-force base. The rest of Box Elder, the area we we were in at least, was pretty trashy, came past a beautiful strip club on our way there. Not much to drive around and look at. So we sat in the parking lot and let them sleep for awhile. Once we got bored waiting we woke them up and went to look.

The outside displays were closed for landscaping but it had gotten cold and cloudy for real as we drove across town so we wanted to go inside anyway. The inside was great, lots of neat stuff to look at I’m sure. Didn’t see much of it. 8 was off and running and The Goblin Child was quickly bored and ready to move on.

We wound up at the parks down town by the Civic Center. They were chilly but fun. 8 crawled all over fascinated by the rubber footing. There were bridges to cross and water to look at. People were actually fishing in the lake. Looked kind of gross to me with garbage floating on the edges, hope they had fun though. Maybe catch and release?

All of that and we still managed to get to Olive Garden early, ahead of the church crowd. We got right in with no wait for once. Then all hell broke loose. The Goblin Child  squirmed and wiggled and refused to sit still. or down. 8 arched backwards flung food on the floor and screamed. We made it through the salad but by the time our meals arrived the place was packed and 8 wouldn’t stop screaming. I took him out to the car, it was preferable to having to sit there with the other and wait for doggie bags. 8 fell asleep as soon as we sat down in the car. I had a few moment of silence before G.C. and her exhausted father came out.

We headed for home immediately. It had been a fun morning. Hard to believe it was barely past noon and we had already accomplished so much. Both children slept, for varying amounts of time, on the way home. Slept while we carried them in and continued to sleep while we took a much needed nap. Then we had Olive Garden for supper.