Vacation

9:00 a.m.

I knew the kids were ready for the vacation when they were both sitting in their car seats and had buckled themselves in. The only problem was I was still packing the car for the trip. For the past week, they'd been smuggling toys into the car each morning on the way to school. “Daddy, are we going on vacation today?” one of them would ask.

“No, that's next week.”

“Well... can we put these toys in so we don't forget them?”

By the day we actually left, there was just enough room for them to squeeze in and buckle their seat belts.

Being a ecologically aware family, and with the price of gas starting to climb again, we were taking the Prius on this trip to Indiana. The directions said seven hours for the trip. That was the Iron Bladder rating. The Parents With Two Kids in a Cramped Car rating should have been listed as an easy ten hours.

The Prius, while great on gas mileage, surprisingly is not one of the more spacious cars there is. Back when gas prices were double what they are now, we decided to use it rather than the minivan for the long trips. We got a roof top bag made of the space-age silver material that had the same effect on my Prius as plaid shorts, black socks and sandals do on men at the beach.
My wife and I have a system for packing. She sets aside the things we will need to survive the trip, everything else is fair game. So when I packed the bag for the top of the car, I packed the bag. Since a roof rack would eat up precious gas mileage, I used the straps that NASA uses to secure the Space Shuttle prior to launch. (These are rated for everything from shuttle securing to rooftop car bags, but surprisingly they are not designed for hammocks. See the previous article for proof.) (I'm one of those people you see at Lowes that uses at least as much twine as the weight of the load. To this date, I have never had anything fly off the top of my car. (There was the time two summers ago the we almost lost a load of lumber out of the back of my wife's minivan. But iot wasn't on top of the minivan and was more a result of poor planning. I thought my friend would be more than enough of a counter-balance. In my defense, the plan was working perfectly until we hit the bump. If he hadn't started yelling and scrambling off, it would have been a moot point. Luckily, slamming the brakes on resettled all the lumber.)) So, when I used the ratchets to tighten down those two straps, they were tight. A tornado would hot have moved that bag off the roof of my car.

So, with the roof bag on and full of my stuff, the kids clothes, sleeping bags, blow up mattresses and anything else that didn't crack, crumble or scream as I stuffed it in, we were almost ready. We only needed to pack the trip essentials, (Games for the kids. My wife spoils them. The only game I would pack is “Look out the Window or Sleep.” But she has coloring books and crayons, magnets, stuffed animals and books. If I hadn't put my foot down, we would have somehow fit a ping pong table in. My logic that they couldn't play while belted in finally won over.) my wife's clothes and the cooler with food.

Three trips later, I had all of her stuff. It was too late to put a towing hitch on my car, (besides, I think the extra weight of the hitch would have me pulling wheelies all the time.) so it was time for hard decisions. My first thought was to take out the kid seats (and the kids), there was plenty of room in the back seat for all her stuff. But I was reminded that this was a family vacation and apparently the kids are a key part of the whole “family” thing.

In the end, we trimmed my wife's essentials down to one suitcase. The back of the Prius was loaded up, all the available space filled in. We just needed to load the two dogs and drop them off at the kennel and we'd be on our way. The only problem was, the last trip we'd taken and brought a dog was when we had our miniature schnauzer. Honey was twice his size, but thought she was half his size. Stripe didn't really care.

After one last check and locking the doors, we were ready to leave. I looked at my family in the car. Faces shining with eagerness. I opened the driver's door to get in. Honey was wedged in front of the seat, ready to hit the gas for me. My wife was trying to pull her back to the passenger side. Stripe was sprawled across both kids in the back seat. My daughter was pushing him toward my son. My son was pushing him toward my daughter. Stripe didn't seem to notice.

11:00 a.m.

Only 10 more hours till we hit the cabin...