Road trips

We took a road trip to Yosemite NP last weekend with 35 month old Rian. The last one was to San Diego in Nov '10. I was really missing and craving road trips. Since the beginning of school this year, our life is topsy turvy and super-schedule-driven. Add to that the little daily things like groceries and menu planning, I just didn't have any energy for planning road trips. Also, the winter was rough on Rian, with the combination of starting school. He was constantly sick. The winter lasted very long too, summer just about starting to rear it's head up.

Memories from our San Diego trip were all very pleasant. Rian had enjoyed the time there, and the 8hr drive was also managed well by Amit and me. We had left early, at 5am, and Rian slept through most of the drive. We were super surprised when we reached SD before 2pm.

Yose trip topped that road trip. We were traveling with extended family: My mom was here from India and Swati (Amit's sister) also was here from NY. We decided to rent a minivan since Rian is crazy about "the car whose doors open automatically". BTW kid's a pro at identifying models of minivans and goes crazy when he spots Honda Odyssey and Toyota Sienna. For a little extra $$ love, we got a Toyota Sienna for 3 days. On Saturday morning when Rian saw it, he was elated :-) Wish I had captured the smile on his face when he was sitting in the van. The road trip had an awesome start!

Usually Rian naps in the car, but he was so excited with the car, and Aatya, and mom and dad being with him, he blew straight through it. We didn't even attempt to put him to sleep. He was soaking in every new thing. We also missed Rian's gym and dance classes on Saturday morning. Little sacrifices I guess.

Daddy made sure Rian was "walking" in most places. Rian is very talented at melting Mumma's heart with "Mumma pick me up" and I go swoop and a hug and a kiss and kiddo's riding on me. Sigh. I just don't get enough of him, so I *need* to pick him up. But I guess at some point I need to let go so he can be a bit more independent. Parenting is so tough on you!

Road trip = junk food. We carried Veggie Straws, Chakalis from India, Masala peanuts. This time around I also carried a bunch of Cuties oranges and fresh yummy cherries from Costco. We had our fair share of junk food at the Curry Village Pizza Deck gorging on pizza for dinner, and sweet savory nothings for breakfast the next day.

Usually we manage to get a tent cabin inside curry village. This time around we were fortunate to get a dry wall cabin. This was way better than tent cabins, and we could actually sleep well. Since I was bed-sharing with Rian, my sleep was disturbed, but Rian was asleep by 9:30pm and awake at 6:40am!! On the way back though, all were very tired, and Rian managed to nap for a couple of hours. Pictures tell the rest of the story. We did a couple of under-one-mile walks, and generally had a good time. Looking fwd to the next road trip :-)