grand opening of Dixon O's restaurant

On the way back from the farmer's market this morning, the kids came up with the idea of having a restaurant.  They pretty much figured it all out themselves, with Oma and I making minor suggestions.  Mommy was going to be the cook, Riley the cashier, Oma the server, Elliot the dishwasher, and Hailey the hostess.  It would be a hot dog restaurant called "Dixon Orders" - Dixon O's for short :)

When we got home, mommy got to work cooking the hot dogs, Oma set up the dining room with Elliot's help, Riley set up the cash register, and customers Hailey and Panda waited patiently outside (with her "car") until we were ready to open.

Riley took the orders, mommy prepped the food, and Riley delivered it to the customer.  everyone ordered hot dogs and milk except Panda, who ordered pretend bamboo.  The waiter and cook also took their lunch breaks, food was delicious!  Then Riley brought everyone their bill and Oma made sure everyone had enough quarters to pay (except the cook, who got her food for free).  Then the waiter had to share that money (including tips) with the cook and use it to pay for the supplies LOL.  Hailey left to go to her car, and Riley ran after her "don't forget your panda!".  We then saw the sign Riley made for the front door - it meant to say "Dixons O" but accidentally said "Dioxns O" which gave Oma and I another round of hard laughter ("dioxins, oh!")

Riley's cashier station, complete with "tips" jar (Oma and I laughed so hard at that), waiter notepad, and Oma's bill (hot dog & milk)

the menu, which had "hot dog 2$ on one side and "mike 1$" (milk) on the other

The restaurant sign "Dioxns O" - I mean "Dixons O"

Riley's roadtrip journal

I think that's a picture of the wind

for day 2, there's snow

the picture for day 4 is a pretty accurate drawing of the bakugan toy he got in his happy meal.  and it says "I hit mom with a snowball" in case that didn't come through the scan

his suggestion for the 3 sentences that day "boring! boring! boring!" so we compromised and had him write this :)

"We went back to the playground.  To get there we walked over a bridge.  It was hinging (high) over the river."

He carefully drew every aspect of this dinky playground: metal slide, seesaw, metal car thing with three steering wheels, bench, and 3 tires.  "mom bot (bought) some trets (treats) at the (camp) store"

"We stopnd (stopped) at a petting zoo.  It had a monstur truck so big I cud sit in the tires.  We feddid (fed) deer and lorikeets."

"We got home that Day.  we had pizza that Nit.  I Was Happy to be Home." (puppy helped him draw the picture of home :)

Hailey's roadtrip journal

I love the detail on this picture: the McDonald's playplace had a car in the climbing structure.  Hailey (at the table) has pigtails, and you can see the happy meal box too

yes, this picture had nothing to do with anywhere we went that day, but cute anyways

Hailey very carefully copied the rainbow lorikeet's coloring from the wikipedia entry I pulled up.  the picture on the right is the building where the lorikeets were, note the separate entrance and exit

ROADTRIP MAP

link to the map below: http://tinyurl.com/2btwe52

 

ROADTRIP DAY 10: Tonopah, AZ to home!

DAY 10: Tonopah, AZ to Los Angeles, CA

1/5/11

We parked overnight on the "far" side of Phoenix so we wouldn't have to drive through rush hour traffic in the morning.  The RV park was huge and the staff very friendly, including helping Opa back up so we wouldn't wreck the Prius against the hookups.  The kids and I never even left the RV, but our site had a tall cactus that Opa took a picture of.  We knew that we were only ~340 miles from LA and would be home that night, but we thought it would be fun to keep it a secret from the kids.  We drove through the desert of AZ, the desert of CA and though the Palm Springs area.  I pointed out to Oma & Opa and the kids where we stayed last Christmas break, but couldn't think of a kid-friendly, large-RV-friendly stop to make there so we kept driving.  We did stop at Hadley's Fruit Orchard store in Cabazon where we got some dried fruit/nut/candy and the grownups sipped their famous date shakes.  By then we were less than two hours from home and with the latest time zone adjustments we were actually driving through downtown Los Angeles ahead of schedule (avoiding most of the nasty traffic and sunset glare).  I couldn't believe how gracefully Opa navigated that bus through the traffic!

It was cute - Riley had read several signs for Los Angeles, so we were sure the kids had caught on by now that we'd be home that night.  When we were <15 minutes away Riley asked where I thought we'd be stopping for dinner, and I said I was thinking pizza (at home ;)  Then when we came up on our exit Riley recognized some signs, and despite Oma's teasing that they had those signs everywhere, soon all three kids were bouncing with excitement.  After we parked the RV (across the entire sidewalk in front of our house!) and let them out Elliot was squealing "we're home, we're home, we're home!"  Daddy got home from work as soon as he could, and the kids greeted him with just as much enthusiasm, excitedly showing him their journals, toys, and telling him tales of our adventures :)

It was quite a trip - seemed relatively short looking back on it, but each day seemed plenty full.  Opa & Oma are off to the RV repair place in the Valley today and will hopefully by tonight will have picked an RV park to be their home for the next few months.  I've got lots of picture sorting, journal scanning, etc to do still, but at least I'm caught up now on my blog :)  Hope you enjoyed reading along!

-Deirdre

ROAD TRIP DAY 9: Rooster Cogburn Ostrich Ranch

Day 9: Las Cruces, NM to Tonopah, AZ
1/4/11

We were probably 30 miles from the Mexican border and it was still very cold (down to freezing at night) which continued to disgust the grownups and be of no concern to the kids.  They loved every opportunity to bundle up in their quilted jackets, gloves, hats, etc :)

The Las Cruces RV park was nice enough - their shower setup was somewhat agreeable so I put the kids through the showers (you don't find too many bathtubs :) and they were cleanish again before we hit the road.  We looked at the remaining route and decided that depending on traffic and any stops we wanted to make, we could stop for the night at Tucson and then stop again in the Palm Springs area the following night, or stop at Phoenix and then drive all the way to LA (300-some miles, a normal day's drive).  While I was online I checked the weather and road conditions in AZ and we were very gratified to see that our chosen route was free of the ice and other nasty weather related warnings that were plaguing route 40 through Flagstaff!

Our drive through NM and into AZ was very uneventful, and although beautiful, the mountains and scenery looked very much the same.  It was sunny though and not too windy and there wasn't much traffic, so the driving was pleasant and our spirits were high.  Oma discovered a random ostrich petting zoo between Tucson and Phoenix that was right off the highway.  We stopped in late afternoon, which was perfect timing since that's when the kids start to get antsy and it was still sunny and not too cold.  For $5 each we got a big cup of feed pellets and a little cup of nectar.  The pellets fed the ostriches, deer, goats, and donkeys and the nectar was for the lorikeets.  The ostriches were scary and aggressive but very photogenic.  The deer were beautiful and gentle and the donkeys were also good for the kids because they were soft even though they were a little more eager.  The lorikeets would sit on you if you held still and the kids were alternately thrilled and weirded out by each of the animals.  What a neat cheap thrill!  They also have monster truck tours which were not operating that day, but the kids loved playing under it on the parking lot.

ROADTRIP DAY 8: Guadalupe Mountain National Park

DAY 8: Lubbock, TX to Las Cruces, NM
1/3 Monday

We swam again in the indoor pool in the morning but decided not to stay an extra day, especially since this stop like every other one was so cold!  We actually got on the road earlier than planned, which worked out well because this turned out to be one of the most exciting days.  We perused the maps in the morning and decided to take a chance driving through the mountainous route even though it wasn't rated a truck route and it looked pretty squiggly on the map.  We stopped in Carlsbad, NM to get very cheap diesel and some local in a cowboy hat chatted up Opa.  We turned around in the back driveway of a hotel which turned out to require the assistance of some guys on their lunch break, and then pulled into the Wal-Mart next door to get more supplies.  I think that was my 4th Wal-Mart in 3 days!

The scenery had changed again after leaving Lubbock - instead of rambling ranch land it resembled the kind of desert/landscape that I associate with Western Movies.  There was lots of desert-type vegetation and the mountains we were seeing more of looked like mesas.  The "towns" started to be really far between and you could hear the RV's (massive) engine working to climb.  We saw a surprising number of 18-wheelers whizzing by the other way so that was weirdly reassuring.  The view was really magnificent as we got into Guadalupe Mountains National Park and we got some great pictures of the view and the kiddos.  It was cute that they also got into taking pictures of the view themselves.

The views of the mountains as the sun set and we drove into El Paso were also really beautiful, but they all turned out terrible through the windows of the moving RV.  We stopped to make and eat dinner in El Paso, TX then drove a bit further and stayed at a campground in Las Cruces, NM.

ROADTRIP DAY 7: Texas and more Texas

DAY 7: Cisco, TX to Lubbock, TX

1/2 Sunday

The “Wild Country RV Park” was something else – bunch of hookups on a hilltop in the middle of nowhere with no facilities. One of the trailers had a sign that said “office” and a slot where you could pay your $20. We never saw another person, but it was pretty in an odd way – we’re guessing that the land used to be an orchard of some kind. They had a “playground”: a fort looking raised building that the children never tried to climb, two rusty wheelbarrows and an old piece of exercise equipment. Again, the kids were just thrilled to be bundled up in their winter coats, hats, gloves, and scarves and pushed the wheelbarrows around like it was the most interesting thing in the world :).

We had a relatively short day of driving planned – we decided to detour slightly to Lubbock TX where Opa knew someone and where there was a KAO campground with nice amenities where we thought we could stay for an extra day. In the morning we hit another Wal-Mart then drove North-West. The campground was indeed quite nice, and had a playground and indoor pool. Unfortunately I had sent our bathingsuits back home with Jeff, sure that we weren’t going to have an opportunity to swim once we stopped being in hotels. Opa made some repairs to the RV and dolly which involved removing the Prius. Afte r washing … miles of sand off of it, we took it to the Lubbock Wal-Mart where I shopped for bathingsuits. In freezing cold Texas. In January. On the clearance racks I actually found swimtrunks for Elliot and basketball shorts for Riley, and a swim bottom for me. I picked up a cheap skort and tank tops for Hailey and (what I thought was) a tank top for me. Turns out the tank top was a thong-back leotard and the swim bottom was a “scoop bottom” and both were the wrong size, so I’m sure I was quite a sight. But the kids had a blast swimming (and again in the morning) even though I kept leaving their goggles in the RV.

the kids all snuggly enjoying a movie before bedtime.they slept so well, in "bed" and asleep by 7 most nights while we were still driving :)

ROADTRIP DAY 6: Arkansas to Texas

DAY 6: Little Rock, AK to Cisco, TX
1/1 Saturday

We kicked off the new year at the unusual Riverside RV Park overlooking the Arkansas River. It was an unexpectedly pretty view at the buildings on the other side and the six bridges that connected North Little Rock from Little Rock. The kids were very excited to show mommy and Oma the awesome playground they had explored the night before with Opa. It involved a (chilly!) walk over a railroad bridge they had converted to a pedestrian bridge, including an elevator up to the raised portion which provided awesome views. The “playground” was an extensive park area with winding paths, concrete tunnels, and strategically placed boulders with lots of things to climb and sneak around. There was also a very long tunnel slide which the kids loved and lots of informational signs giving historical information.

After thoroughly tiring them out (and making them cold, which they didn’t mind at all) we hit the road, driving through more of Arkansas until we crossed into Texas. We were surprised that in the winter, the highway scenery of Arkansas looked like Tennessee, Virginia, and Pennsylvania and pretty much every other state we had driven through since Massachusetts. The Texas information center was closed for New Year’s Day, so we didn’t get a map, but the kids enjoyed playing in the piles of dry leaves.

We looked up a barbecue place in Dallas, but it too was closed for the holidays. I was having a turn sitting up front being the navigator, so I was the one who accidentally sent the RV down the wrong road, which we tried to fix by turning around in a church parking lot which we noticed had a chain across – after we started down the driveway already! Luckily I was able to undo the chain and we were on our way to an Outback that had an empty office park across the street. The grownups all ordered ribs – not quite the same experience but yummy anyways. By then the kids were too tired to eat much so they happily ate their cheeseburgers and mac-n-cheese for breakfast the next morning.