It’s a Road Trip!

Firkroy and the gang are getting ready to hit the road, southern California here we come!

My son saw it first. “What’s that white ball on top of Daryl’s flag pole?” he asked.

I told him that I thought it was just the cap on top of the flag pole. I did think a white ball was a bit different at the time, they’re usually gold or silver I thought to myself, or in the shape of a bird.

Later that evening my son stepped outside to admire the bright crescent moon. Oregon in July usually provides clear skies that we don’t get at other times of the year; it was a treat to gaze on the sliver of a moon without clouds in the way.

“It glows all sorts of colors.” He said

“Glowing? What glows all sorts of colors?” I replied a bit bewildered.

“The top of Daryl’s flagpole, it’s changing colors.” He said excitedly.

Red, then green, and then blue it glowed. I had never seen the top of a flagpole glow like that. I’m starting to believe that I am actually living in some sort of Facebook game where you get points for building crazy stuff in your yard. What’s next an Egyptian tomb? Will mummies start walking around visiting all of the other neighbors’ crazy yards? Am I supposed to build a Chinese garden with a coy pond in my yard? Should I be making friends with the neighbor that threw fish on my roof to get extra points?

My son gets off to bed, and my wife and I sit down to watch some old episodes of Star Trek Voyager. I introduced this series to her when we were dating but she never got to see the beginning of the series, so it’s our after the bed treat when the kids go to bed. Neelix the alien they picked up in the first episode had his lungs zapped out of his body by organ snatchers, so the holographic doctor made some holographic lungs to keep him alive until the end of the program. Now that’s entertainment!

After the show my wife asks “Are the chickens in bed?” I hadn’t put them to bed, so I guess the answer was no. We need to close their coop up every night to keep raccoons from snacking on them. Ok, ok, I won’t say it, but most of us already know what chickens taste like to raccoons.

*whispers*… “Chicken”

The kids destroyed all of the real flashlights, because apparently they’re fun to ruin. The toy ones we buy for them must NOT be fun to ruin because they’re the only ones that work.

My wife hands me a six inch lightsaber that glows blue, and tells me it’s the only flashlight she could find. I fire up my miniature blue lightsaber and proceed into the dark. If I’m ambushed by Darth Vader’s Mini Me I’m all set. The little light saber gives me enough light to tip toe through the chicken poo to get to their coop. 1,2,3,4,5, and 6 yep all present and accounted for. I collect up the laid eggs, lock up the coop, and head back toward the house.

“I hate chickens” I mumble to myself.

We are making a trip to southern California to visit Legoland, and the next morning we are back to the pre-road trip planning and tasks. My wife has been making checklists everyday with thing to do and assigning us both duties. Letters from our first names are written next to our respective tasks. I yell at the boys to turn down the TV blaring “Power Ranger Roar, Power Ranger Roar!” and we wonder why they spend so much time Kung Fuing each other.

I have real coffee to drink this morning; I did have to get a tongue transplant after consuming some instant black sludge the other day but luckily it didn’t hurt much.

Packing the minivan for the trip has to be done in a way that optimizes space, and properly occupies our young “Are we there yet” travelers. I did invest in a little DVD player, a small price to pay for pleasant conversations with my spouse. Of course they will have books and other things to occupy their time, and if they get real bored maybe they can look out of the windows and count cows.

OK so, first aid kit - check. Yeah, I suppose we should patch up the kids if they beat each other up or get bit by rattlesnakes. We threw in a snakebite kit for giggles.

Kid’s cloths packed - check. If it were up to them they would wear one pair of cloths for the whole trip, but we probably couldn’t take the smell.

Sunscreen - check. Not the spray on stuff, we found out that it doesn’t really work so well. I’m starting to look like George Hamilton after using that stuff.

iPod charged - check. You need to drown out the fighting in the backseat somehow if it breaks out.

I hear they have apple fries at Legoland, wow apple pie in a French fry container what will they think of next! My son’s have never really been out of Oregon and I think they are a little apprehensive about going into California. Both my wife and I have lived in California but in different parts. I spent years in the bay area and my wife lived in and around L.A.

My oldest son keeps talking about Black Widow spiders “Can we collect some and make a habitat for them dad?” he asks.

“We don’t need to make a habitat for them son, they already have one, It’s called California.” The thought of keeping Black Widow spiders in my house makes my skin crawl. The memories of the Black Widow body count we kept while working in a radio repair shop in Livermore should have stayed crammed away in my brain where I hid it many years ago, but here I am thinking about it again.

When you read this we will probably be driving on Interstate 5 someplace, I5 stretches from Canada to Mexico and we’ll be traveling most of it on this trip. It will take two days and we’ll only stop to feed kids chicken nuggets, get more gas, and spend the night in Sacramento which is our halfway point. I’ll miss Daryl, but I’m sure that the California locals will provide more than enough entertainment to keep me happy. Good thing I have this George Hamilton suntan, I’ll blend right in.