It is about 600 km from Wallace to Seattle. Even on the Interstate, that is a long haul taking a minimum of 6 and more like 10 hours, when you include meal breaks and traffic jams. That is a long time even for adults, though of course we know the phenomenal hours cyclists from New Zealand endure when travelling to Europe. But for kids strapped in the back of a car? Trouble!

Avi and Violet were fairly good about it, but even so there was a lot of uncontrolled giggling, poking, kicking. This was then accompanied by a lot of irritated threats from the front seats, interspersed with the standard attempts to have breaks, feed, and entertain the little passengers. It's a standard story for road trips with kids. But what can you do?

Actually, the answer is probably to bring along more entertainment - which could be just more paper and pens, but in truth would really need to be videos. Even on our plane trips to Europe, I find the videos to be very helpful. So that would be the main takeaway from our odyssey today.

It all ended well, though. This means firstly that the car did not get smooshed in Seattle traffic while the driver was being distracted by a kid. But more memorably, there was the reunion with Mom, and the presentation of the gifts that had been so carefully chosen for her at the Crystal Gold Mine.

The bikes are temporarily stashed away now, but plans are already underway to upgrade them (the kids seemed to actually grow during the ride and we raised the seats twice), carry on with training, and take on another challenge next year!

Heart

0

Comment

0

Link

Log in to comment or reply