City of a thousand lights, millions of putt putt courses, and of course Yakov

I like road trips . . . . most of the time. I like to drive I should say and give the qualifier that I like to drive when there is little or no traffic. I even like to drive alone. It is almost calming and relaxing to get behind the wheel pop in a book on CD or my favorite road trip music and just enjoy the scenery flying by (and it is flying because I like to drive at high speeds when I am on a road trip). From one of my previous posts you may have noticed I took two road trips in short succession.

Road Trip #1 – On to Branson
I got to play tour guide on this road trip. Some schoolmom-friends (they are moms frin my school that are friends or as I like to refer to them “my old lady friends” or “sister chicks”) were dropping off their daughters at Kanakuk Kamps for summer kamp. I just happen to have spent 6 AMAZING summers on staff at Kanakuk so I know all things kamp and therefore all things Branson and all things on the fastest route to Branson from D-town.

So we set off in the perfect soccer mom car, an Expedition, at a reasonable hour of 9 am. Me, two moms, two daughters, and our little stow away (actually another student from our school that was also going to kamp) headed out with our car full of road trip stuff and three trunks strapped to the roof. After a layover at the Chick-fil-a (where we ordered a total of 14 times, gotta love the chicken in a biscuit) and the pick up of our stow away we were on the road.

Now I had assured the moms that I knew the tried and true fastest way to kamp and we were in a road race with another family that had left an hour earlier from the same street as our departure and were taking a different route. It so happened that as we pulled on to the turnpike that both parties would be traveling on we were RIGHT BEHIND the other family. In fact my co-pilot called the competition (because all things in life are a competition, even driving to kamp) as we pulled on the entrance ramp to check on their status and found out that they were in our vicinity. She then instructed them to hit their tail lights and low and behold there they were 100 yards in front of us. This astounded my co-pilot and she was fairly perturbed that the other mom and myself were not as amazed as she was.

I was in fact more proud that my way was indeed faster and we had met them after starting an hour later and stopping way too many times (this is a good place to note that I am an expert roadtripper – I stop only when absolutely needed and I like to clump my stops into one (bathroom, lunch, and gas all at once) – this allows for optimum traveling time).

The trip was long no less because I was traveling family style (instead of single Katie kamikaze style – thank you dad for making us “hold it” for 30 more miles on road trips because I know have the bladder control of a camel – for example one 6-7 hour road trip and I only need one bathroom break – if I was determined I could even wait until we reached the destination – yes people I am that good).

One point of interest was that my co-pilot has the bladder of an ant (do they even have bladders? Or better yet does she? Or is it just one long track from her esophagus to her urethra?). So with this non-existent bladder we were at odds in regards to bathroom stops and procedures. This of course did not deter her from performing her urinary needs. She proceed to do what is never allowed on road trips and squatted in the front floor board with a perfectly positioned sonic cup and relieved herself right there in front of me. I was dumbfounded with what to say, what to do. Is it rude to watch her pull off this peeing feat or since she is doing it right in front of me is it my freedom to inspect her technique. Suffice it to say that we are good friends and I know way too much about her bathroom history that this was not surprising or shocking but more of a natural occurrence in her world.

While the peeing incident might have been the highlight of the trip I do have one more item to post about. When we got to the kamp I knew the down-low on the whole checking in procedure as well as a good portion of the leadership staff. Since there were two moms, two daughters and our stow-away I got to play mom, I repeat PLAY MOM. I helped our stow away, who was 13 and going into 8th grade, get moved into her teepee (feel free to ask questions about that tidbit).

As we enter, the counselor (who couldn’t have been more than 20) said so sweetly, “Shea you and your mom can make your bed if you want”. Wait, did she just call me mom, yep she did. Now I realize that at 27 I am a good deal older than this counselor but I am not the mother of a 13 year old. Do I look that old, really? I still get asked what my major in college is, so I can’t appear that old. My friend, who still works at the kamp and is my age, let out a laugh as I quickly corrected this poor college student of her faux paux.

So that was a brief description of road trip #1.

Check back for more details and a description of RT#2 later.