Standing on the Edge

The Great RH Road Trip:  Day One aka Pre-Concert Adventures

The plan: 

Drive 11 hours to Phoenix, sleep, eat Mexican, go to concert, get socks knocked off, sleep, drive to Vegas, see Hoover Dam, play, sleep, visit a pyramid, drive home. 

The execution:

It started with 1 mini van, 5 adults, and 2 Kids.  It started at 5 O'clock at night.  In all my mommy wisdom, I came up with the idea that driving half the drive at night would be beneficial with kids so they could sleep instead of asking a million times how much longer till we get there.  I knew that we (meaning me and 3 siblings and a sib in law) could keep each other up just fine, since we do that anyway whenever we are together.  Well, the sib in law not so much, she is more in the Rob camp (ie a "light weight" when it comes to staying up late).  I was imagining leaving more in the neighborhood of 4, and yes, we left my house at 5, but we were still leaving Orem at 5:45 (thanks to an ill fated trip to Arctic Circle- why Arctic Circle?  BECAUSE we needed food and needed something fast and there it was.  But it wasn't fast.)  

You might worry that starting out this way was a bad omen for the trip, but you would be wrong!  The trip felt magical and enchanted and turned out to have some wonderfully fated surprises in store. Sorry- that just spilled out.

We drove.  And we drove.  We listened to podcasts, we laughed and talked.  We listened to OK Computer, we played Ticket to Ride on the iPad.  The sun went down.  Matt and B did some sleeping.  Poor kids had to drive that day from Wyoming so they were already 6 hours in plus we listened to the soothing sounds of Adam Kempenaar of Filmspotting and bored them to sleep.  But we drove on and we were tired.  The kids did sleep and it was nice.  Around two we were excited to figure out that Arizona was behind us one hour, so we gained an hour.   We needed that hour, but too bad it still felt as late as it was in Utah for us.  Scout woke up about an hour before we got there.  She'd had a pretty good night's sleep at that time.  She was about as awake as I was tired.  (Brief explanation: The week before we left, the kids and I were sick.  There was colds, throat ordeals and stomach flus happening.  All I kept saying was "better this week then next week".  I felt very sick all day Monday, had a touch of the stomach flu myself and ran a fever all night.  Only slept for a few minutes here and there.  Tuesday I didn't want to eat, but nibbled a few things here and there.  That night was the night before the trip, so I stayed up taking care of last minute things and packing, then I had a lot on my mind and then Elle woke up for over two hours in the middle of the night.  Not sad- just up and a little beanie.  I stayed up with her, and then got up early to get Scout off to school.  That brings us to "trip day" and I was a busy, busy bee all day and too excited and nervous to eat, again- just nibbled here and there.  Alright you're up to speed, sidebar over.)

We arrived at the hotel, where Sue had made a reservation- she works for The Marriott, so we get good rates, especially good ones when Sue is with us.  Yeah, it's awesome.  She was in there a long time and we watched her and she even shook her head once.  We got scared that there was a problem.  We were soooo tired and plenty tired of the car and the thought of a problem was so very bad.  She got back in the car and the only problem had been that the credit card she used to secure it had expired in the mean time, so they had to put in the new information.  Phew.  All I wanted to do was crash in bed.  All my girls wanted to do was be awake after their wonderful long naps.  We finally got them in beds (and I use that term loosely for Elles, since her bed was a couch cushion in the kitchen area of the room)  Sidebar:  we opted for one room that had 2 queen size beds and a hide a bed.  We would rather share, save money and giggle together then have personal space and separate.  We had no regrets about that decision either (well a small one when it came to showering and getting ready).  Anyway, I got the girls in bed and Elle decided to sleep, but Scout decided to stay awake.  I let her watch Scooby Doo on the iPad with headphones with one strict rule-  let mama sleep.  She broke it at least 5 times that first hour, waking me up to go potty, ask questions, get a drink, and to watch a funny thing Shaggy did.  ARGG!  So, after no more then 2 hours of sleep, Elles woke me up by being a tad whiny.  When I got up to get her a bottle, I found her perpendicular to her cushion and scrunched into a 8 inch space in between it and the mini fridge.  And thus the day began.  The hubub woke up a hungry Scout.  I quietly tried to entertain the kids while the others got a little more sleep, then we headed down to breakfast.   I actually ate a fairly decent amount for that meal (I was very proud of myself).  Then we got ready and headed to the venue to see how far it was, and get the lay of the land so we would have no surprises come concert time.  There was a little outdoor mall around the venue, so we wandered around the stores and fountains and took a look at the die hard, lucky fans that got general admission tickets and queued up early that morning for a front and center spot. You know, just basically cased the place. Did I mention that Rob is the greatest ever! it's true.

Scout really wanted to swim in the pool with her aunts while we were at the concert, plus we needed snacks for the room, so we drove around and ended up at............Walmart.  I know.  What the crap.  I hadn't been in a Walmart for a long time and it instantly pissed me off by not having any Cran-Raspberry juice.  I bought Scout a couple pool toys and some flip flops and Elle's some swim diapers and then insisted on paying for the drinks and snacks because "TODAY IS RADIOHEAD DAY!!!"  Drinks were on me. 

We desperately wanted some good Mexican food- we figured it would be tasty in Arizona.  We went back to the hotel to get ready for the concert and to ask the concierge for a recommendation.  He gave us one along with directions, we got ready and made sure we had everything (ie B's ticket, binoculars, camera, I.D....), and we were off.

We found the restaurant and parked a few blocks away.  When we got to the place, it looked pretty dark.  There was a note on the door that there had been a fire and it was closed for a few days to recover.  That was a pretty crazy thing we thought, so we walked back from where we had come from, since we had passed a Japanese place that looked good.  Sushi and Radiohead:  sounded right to me.  Well, it was closed.  The restaurant next to it was closed too.  We wondered what the crap is going on downtown Phoenix?  I mentioned that there might have been a zombie apocalypse we didn't know about yet.  I secretly hoped that if there was, they hadn't gotten the band yet and the concert would still go on.  But that was a moot point because we passed a little Thai place and by some miracle, it was open!  We ducked in there and ended up having a fabulous meal.  We decided to chalk it up to kismit- maybe the Mexican place would have been gross and we never would have known about the yummy little Thai place with the nice, friendly, little server.  Poor Elles though grabbed a fist full of pipping hot orange chicken (that girl can be FAST when it comes to food- don't let the tenuous command she has over her hands fool you, when food is on the table- she can be as dexterous as anyone).  It was sad though, the look on her face when she felt the searing chicken was heartbreaking.  Our nice, friendly, little server felt awful for putting it down within her reach.  Didn't slow her down long though.  Nothing ever does (except for walking or crawling).

We dropped Cat and the kids off at the hotel and set off.  It was finally here!  Let the mass excitement ensue.

To be continued..........................

"I’m on a roll,
I’m on a roll this time
I feel my luck could change."

-Lucky