Like I said (I noticed I started the previous post with this phrase as well), we didn’t know when we woke up on December 17th that we would be leaving that day. I had made some initial preparations like getting travel bottles filled and laundry cleaned but not actually packing. We ended up having a hectic afternoon once we realized we had so little time to work with. I bought some timers for the Christmas lights and interior lights a week or two before but hadn’t figured out how to work them. We figured out how those worked and realized it might be a smart idea to find another timer for the regular exterior lights. So Casey headed out to Home Depot and got those items and figured out how things worked while I worked on packing. I read in one of the reviews on Amazon that duffle bags were the better (one user’s opinion) way to go when using the cargo bag we bought. We only have one decent sized cargo bag so I ended up using that and every other smaller sized bag we own. There were a lot of little bags up there in order to last us two weeks including birthdays and Christmas, not to mention a baby gate and pack n’ play.
Once I had all the bags packed, Casey went and laid down to try and rest up for our trip. I stayed in the living room with the dogs and tried to keep Brady entertained and quiet the best I could. I eventually had to rely on PBS for backup but Casey did get two hours of peace before we started off. We originally intended to travel the route we took on our first trip down to Austin, but due to winter storms one of the roads we needed to be on was snow packed and the idea of being stranded in west Texas with the mutants was not so appealing. I was looking forward to a change of scenery from our usual route but it just wasn’t in the cards. We stopped twice to make some adjustments to the cargo bag and for gas and for some Chick Fil-A before actually getting on I-35 to head north. Dude was still on antibiotics and so we decided to bring our small cooler along to keep some snacks for Brady and Dudey’s hot dogs. We forgot about the cooler until we were in the middle of nowhere and forced to pay NINE dollars for a bag of ice. Typing that disgusts me since we could have easily repurchased everything in the cooler again once we got to Colorado for half that. Well, we won’t be stopping there again that’s for sure!
Our trip to Colorado ended up taking us 16 hours – our best time yet! This is shocking considering how many times we had to stop along the way for various members of our crew. Brady did amazingly well and only fussed for a short while where I in turn sang her loads of Christmas carols and she passed out to escape my terrible singing voice. We were exhausted but relieved to finally be in Colorado and shocked the family there because they didn’t expect us until the following day. In fact, as we were coming into town (maybe 5 minutes from my parents’ house) my mom called to see if we had taken off yet (this was about noon on Saturday, I think). I told her we left at 8:30 (we did, just PM instead of AM as she assumed) and weren’t too far from the house (theirs, not ours but I didn’t mention that). Casey and I were just talking when we called that neither of us could remember the garage code so I was grateful she called and was able to slip it in and get the code without her knowing how soon we’d be using it. We managed to open the garage and get into the kitchen without anyone seeing us and they were all shocked/happy/excited to see us!
I’m going to take a break for now as I try and remember what we did each day of the trip. We still didn’t take as many pictures as I would have liked but there’s some new pics to post as well.