road trip prep

The kids and I are taking a road trip next week. We're traveling south to see my parents in Kentucky, something we haven't done for a year. (It was exactly a year ago, in fact, because I remember we were there for Halloween.) I'm equally excited and anxious about this trip. Excited because I need a change of scenery before Wisconsin winter gets me down, anxious because I'm making that drive by myself. My plan is to pick up Daniel from his preschool class on Monday and just GO. (Maybe get our flu shots first, if there's an appointment time available.) Hopefully they will sleep some in the car, and we'll have snacks, too, but we'll go until we can't anymore and stop for dinner and stay overnight in a motel and then finish up the trip on Tuesday. In March when I went to Kansas with the kids to see my cousin, we made the trip in one day and it was too much for me. We survived, obviously, but it was incredibly stressful. I'm hoping that splitting this drive into 2 days will make it bearable, especially if we find a hotel with a pool. Stuart has to be in Indiana the following week for work, so we'll meet him on the way back home.

But I have all this pre-travel anxiety about the driving and keeping the kids occupied and making sure I have all the right things packed, even though it's not like my parents live in the middle of nowhere, so it's not like we couldn't go to Kroger or Wal-Mart (horrors!) if I forgot something like a toothbrush or underwear.

I need this trip, though. I haven't played a gig in months, I only have a couple piano students, it's getting cold here, and I just feel like I'm spinning my wheels. Plus, I think my dad is pretty excited about carving more jack-o-lanterns with his grandson.