We left Thursday morning at 4am. Yep, you heard me right, 4 in the morning. I heard from much more experienced travelers that leaving early meant more travel time with sleeping children. OK, I'll sacrifice my sleep needs for more peace in the car. Up at 3am, out the door at 3:58am. Great, right on time. Nathan wakes up at 4:30. WHAT! Are you kidding me? You're kidding right? All from the front seat with seat belt still loosely attached I try shushing him, rubbing his head and rolling the window down for 'noise' (now its loud and possibly going to wake up Katherine). I reluctantly climb to the back seat that was sooooo neatly packed, to show my peaceful, mommy face and smile him back to sleep. Not working. Fine, so he's awake. Get out the DVD player and find out that there's no way to attach it to the head rest without him being able to kick it thereby turning it off or opening it. It's starting to get funny, right? Not quite. I've been reduced to holding a DVD player for Mr. early bird at 5:30 in the morning only an hour and a half into our 8 hour trip. Did you know the sun isn't even up at that time? Our displeased countenances are showered with the familiar blue tint eminating from a TV screen. And, it doesn't work. At least not to keep him happy, but it did succeed in waking up sister. We managed to stop at an IHOP for breakfast at 6:30, were back in the car heading north at 7:30 and little dude was asleep at 7:45. Not a very good start to the day or vacation.
As you can imagine, my attitude went south quickly, and it took about 5 hours into the trip before I had a little heart-to-heart with myself. I knew that I had no control over anybody else's attitudes or behaviors in that car, except for my own. So, right before lunch time I decided to be a nice person. The rest of the trip went well. We arrived in Dillard at 3 pm, so our 8-hour trip turned into 11-hours.
Some interesting quotes generated from our car on the way there:
1. This is why people buy cars the size of buses.
2. Does it only take one 'stop' to mess up the whole car?
The Dillard House is beautiful. The facilities, restaurant, garden, flowers, stable for the animals and the scenery are all gorgeous. After supper that night we walked around the grounds and enjoyed some of the sights.
The view from our room.
There was almost an hour I was by myself with the kiddos that night and this is what mommy lets them do when daddy is away.
Helen, Blue Ridge and Atlanta are next.
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