National Lampoon has nothing on our vacation!

Here are the travel bookends of our trip.

We left for Oregon on a Thursday. We woke little j up at 3:00 a.m. to drive to Richmond to catch a 6 a.m. flight. She woke up immediately and was ready to go in minutes. Amazingly she didn't fall asleep on the 70 minute drive to the airport nor did she sleep on the flight to JFK or the connector to SFO. By the time we got our rental car and got on the road it was about 1:30 PDT. Then we drive to Southern Oregon and arrived about 8:30 p.m. little j slept for a whole hour in the car, so by the time we put her to bed she had been up for about 20 hours. Whew!

Fast forward twelve days to yesterday (Tuesday). Our flight didn't leave SFO until 12:25 so little j and I left my uncle's home at 9:30. It worked perfectly because we never felt rushed and were able to get lunch before getting on our flight. However, the day before I took Big J to BART at 5:15 a.m. to head to SFO since he was flying to Boston for a training. I went back to the house and crawled back into bed. At 7:45 I woke up and realized, with horror, that he had the keys to our car parked at the Richmond Airport. Of course, I was panicked. He called me between flights at JFK and said he would take care of it.

Here, I have to give a huge shout out to our amazing neighbor Ms. J who drive to Richmond to put my car keys in the car. The plan was that she would leave the keys then I would call On Star when I arrived and they would unlock the door. Good plan? Well, yes, but unfortunately On Star can't unlock doors for a car that hasn't been driven within 48 hours.

So little j and I arrive in Richmond at 11:30 EDT and head to the car. I call On Star and realize after my conversation with them and their attempt to unlock the car that it isn't going to work. We are hopelessly locked out. However, the On Star person says that they can send someone to unlock the car in about an hour. By this time it is 12:30 a.m. and both little j and I are upset. I am so upset that as I hang up the phone I said "Fuck." To which little j asked, "Mommy, why did you say 'fuck?'" Nice parenting, That Girl. I explain to her that I was a little upset and I said a word that wasn't very nice. But everything was going to be okay.

Fortunately, there was a Double Tree right next the parking lot, so I decided to check in for the night, get little j settled and then come back for the car. So we hiked over to the hotel and, of course, they were completely booked. I nearly burst into tears right there. But I didn't want to alarm little j so we sat in the lobby for a few minutes and went to the restroom. While we were in the restroom I cried silently in the stall next to little j's then splashed cold water on my face and we headed back to the car to wait.

We watched a movie until the battery went out on the DVD player. Then we read Bread and Jam for Francis. By the time we finished the book the lock guy was there. He had the car open in a matter of minutes and at 1:30 a.m. little j and I were on our way home. little j helped load up the car, put her seat in and put my purse on the front seat, then climbed in and put her seatbelt on, all the while keeping a firm grip on the car keys while I finished up with the paperwork.

As we got on the road she drifted off to sleep and woke up when we arrived home at 3:00 a.m. just long enough to put on her pajamas and snuggle into her own bed.