Trip Home - 13 Hours

Not on anyone's top ten list of things to do - drive 13 hours with a 1-year-old. We did it on the 23rd coming home from Asheville to Jackson. Hour one was the worst - I-40 goes through a mountain pass and Curtain Climber got carsick, depositing her breakfast all over herself, the carseat and the car. Mommy felt a bit sick herself after that. I crawled into the back seat to clean her up and help her - we couldn't stop right away because through the pass there are no exits, so we kept going to Sevierville, TN, and stopped there at the trusty McDonald's playland (our 2nd visit there this trip alone). We changed her clothes and our attitudes and kept going. One of Todd's best ideas EVER is tossing a roll of paper towels into the back seat on any car trip. You just don't think about the multitude of ways those can be used until you really need them. Courtney was fussy but watched Baby Einstein and we all sang songs (went through the kids song CD twice!) to keep her calmed down. But truly, she couldn't have behaved any better if she had had a halo. After 10 hours of riding, we spent an hour in Meridian at the Chik Fil A play land (by the way they have diaper changing stations in the mens room there - they have won a lifelong fan in me!) and by then it was her bedtime, and she slept the final couple of hours home. We left Asheville at 8 a.m. Mississippi time and got home 8:45 p.m. Mississippi time, so it was more than 12.5 hours.