11/6/22- Goodbye Chicago!
Our plan had originally been to slowly make our way west from Chicago to Provo, driving on the weekends, and staying put for a week at a time so that Jonathan could work.
However.
Jonathan’s team ended up doing an onsite get together in Seattle. And he was supposed to fly out the very day that we were supposed to check out of our Chicago Airbnb.
The idea of driving 1,653 miles with a trailer, with 5 children, by myself was a little much. It sounded like I might get dead.
So we called my mom to see if she could ride along with me.
By a crazy twist of fate, she was going on a trip to the Great Smokey Mountain National park with a couple of her sisters and one of my cousins.
She was slated to fly back to Salt Lake on the very day that Jonathan would be flying out. Wanna know where her layover between Tennessee and Salt Lake was going to be?
CHICAGO! Can you believe that!? What are the flippin’ odds?!
So basically we decided that she would just get off her plane in Chicago and then not get on the second leg of her flight. Magic.
(I still can’t believe it worked out like that!)
So Jonathan scheduled his flight so that we would be able to drop him off and pick up my mom at the exact same time. And that is exactly how it worked out. Easy peasy.
We then drove to the Lea’s house, where we had parked the trailer, (I didn’t want to navigate a busy airport, with a drop off and a pick up, with a trailer. I’d rather eat dirt.)
It also meant that we got to see the Leas, very briefly, one more time.
So, we went to the Lea’s house and picked up the trailer. It was a little tricky getting it to engage all its parts properly so that we could attach it to the car. But Robert was able to figure it out. And he showed me what was going on, so I figured I could handle it.
And so off we went, toward St. Louis.
Chicago to St. Louis
- 5 Hours
- 314 miles
We got to our hotel, I got us checked in, and we unloaded the children and the things we would need for the night onto the trolley and I left my mom, the kids, and the stuff in the lobby so I could go park and get things squared away with the trailer and the van.
The parking situation at the hotel was SO easy with a trailer. I was incredibly grateful for that! Let me tell you what!! There was a big ol’ parking lot that was quite empty. And so, I was able to just take up two spots that were end to end. NBD! Celestial parking is what we call that.
The thing that did end up being a “BD” is that I am not terribly experienced with the trailer. And it was being super finicky. Certain parts wouldn’t engage/unengage properly… And I was having trouble with the security locks, etc. It took a while.
At one point I got a text from my mom who wanted to make sure I wasn’t dead. That’s how long it took. My mother thought that I had died of starvation.
Finally, finally, finally I was able to get every last fiddly thing squared away and we went into the hotel and SLEPT. The twins slept in one room with me, and the other three kids slept in a room right next door with Grammy.
Also, one last details, my poor mom wasn’t feeling well this whole day. She has a cold. The poor little lamb.
11/7/22- Gateway Arch in St Louis
A couple of days ago, I bought tickets for us to go up inside Gateway Arch in St. Louis. Alas, we awoke this morning, and my poor mom was full on sick. Poor little lamb.
But we decided to do the Arch anyway. After breakfast, I went to get the car and trailer figured out. And the same struggles from last night manifested again. Again, I got a text from my mom making sure I wasn’t dead….
Meanwhile, we were coming up on our time slot to go up in the arch. So I was feeling a little bit concerned about that.
But I FINALLY got every last fiddly thing squared away and we were off.
I had previously determined where we would park at the arch. Because parking is a bit stressful for me at the best of times, let alone when you add in an additional layer of complexity with the trailer. As it turned out, the parking was one of the easiest parts of the day.
Once we arrived, I had to do the lock on the trailer (same problems all over again). But this time, Isaac lost his gosh darn mind because he didn’t want me to put the lock on the trailer for some reason. It didn’t make sense then. And it sure doesn’t make sense now. It was like a switch just flipped. He screamed. And he screamed.
And so I picked him up. My hope was that he would calm down as we got closer. And so, we started walking up toward the spot where we were supposed to go for our tour.
He was still screaming. And then as we were walking, Evie tripped. And she started screaming. She is usually pretty chill when she gets hurt, but not today. It felt like a switch had just been flipped in her too.
3 year olds 😫😫😫
They both screamed. And would not be calmed. And they both refused to walk unless I was carrying them.
So, even though I was already carrying a heavy backpack, I put Isaac up on my shoulders, I picked up Evie in one arm, and I went up 3 flights of stairs.
(There were some guys that were using this same flight of stairs to exercise, and they were totally impressed. They were like “Way to go Mom!” Honestly I appreciated a little recognition in that moment. It was not easy.)
After we got up the stairs, they continued to freak out. And my arms (and my poor cardiovascular system) could only take so much. So I had to set them down. And they screamed.
We all tried to reason with them. And they just continued to scream. By this point, I was feeling like this was all futile.
But we persisted. And once we got inside the Visitor Center, their switches flipped again. And they were both completely fine. For the entire time we were in the Arch. (What the actual heck? It really was weird how quickly they both lost it and then how quickly they calmed down again.)
Since everything with the twins and the trailer had taken longer than we had anticipated, we walked right up to the tram to go up into the arch. Even though we were a little late, the park rangers were very nice and let us go right through. (Did you know that the Gateway arch is a national park? It is. In fact, it is the smallest national park by acreage. Isn’t that adorable?)
There were a couple of small exhibits and a short multimedia presentation in the waiting area. (I got the feeling that the lines can be pretty long at peak times). And then we made our way onto the trams, which are pretty unique. Because of the way that the Arch is shaped, they had to design a pretty ingenious system of getting people up and down. The trams are basically a combination of an elevator, an escalator, and a ferris wheel. Pretty amazing.
Our time up in the arch was limited to about 7 minutes. But honestly that’s enough. It’s pretty small in there. And we got to check out the beautiful views. And we even saw where we were parked. Isn’t that adorable?!?
After our time allotment was up we headed back to the tram waiting area and after the people coming up disembarked, we hopped in.
We wandered through the gift shop for a moment. And then we headed out. My poor mom was feeling pretty lousy. And I wanted to get on the road cause we had a bit of a drive ahead of us.
Once we were back outside again, the twins lost it again. I can’t even remember why. (I think I’ve blocked it from my memory.)
All that I can say is that this trip to the Gateway Arch was certainly memorable. (And exhausting.)
After we made our way back to the car we got on the road and headed for Kansas
