This is the first of three installments which will chronicle our trip from Massachusetts to Wisconsin. There will be pictures and hopefully some stories of interest but I apologize if it gets a little boring  – feel free to skip these posts or just skim through the pictures – I totally wouldn’t blame you.

Day One: The Kind Of Morning That Lasts All Afternoon

Last Tuesday morning we planned to leave for our little trip to Wisconsin shortly after the moving company, who was due to arrive at our apartment for loading at 8am. We showed up about 30 minutes before that with MM to get things ready. Dan’s parents came over to say goodbye one last time, as did my bestie Ange @ Red Knows How with her two girls. Here’s a cute picture of the three kids in our apartment for one last time.

The moving company called shortly after that to tell us they were having problems with their truck and would be an hour late. When they showed up, they were driving a Budget Rental Truck which must mean they were having pretty big problems. I am guessing that the Fates decided to give them the rest of our potential car problems, because after all the issues my car had before our trip, it was smooth sailing the whole way to Wisconsin, car-wise.

Anyway, at 9am they started loading and it ended up taking way longer than either Dan or I had anticipated. They were far more thorough and meticulous than I’d even imagined possible which is clearly a good thing, but they didn’t finish until shortly after 1pm – at which point we grabbed some lunch and headed back to my dad’s house to finish loading our vehicles and leave. I’d assumed we’d be on the road that morning, maybe around 10am – 11 at the latest. Instead we left around 2:30pm – but seeing as the moving company was only one hour late and despite being thorough, they were very efficient – I never saw them lingering, they worked hard the whole four hours – I don’t see how we could possibly have left much earlier than 1pm even if they’d been on time.

So at 2:30 pm we left home for our new home.

Our first stop was at a hotel in Batavia, New York that night. We were lucky and had good traffic – that morning and afternoon our home town was a mess of construction, traffic jams and emergency vehicles but the trip to New York was largely uneventful. It was definitely a relief to leave that traffic behind and I’m hoping the roads in Wisconsin are kinder to us than old New England cities planned around cow paths and ignorance. < / Rant. >

We had dinner at some fancy little dive in New York – I can’t remember the name of the place, but it was like a slightly expensive Steak House kind of place, but more generic than that and not really worth the money. After eating far more dinner than any of us needed we were too full to take advantage of what looked like a really decent dessert menu that I’d failed to notice on the way in – which was kind of sad – I vowed that night to always leave room for any potential desserts on the rest of the trip.

MM did a lot of jumping from car to car that first night, preferring to sit with his grandpa most of the time. In the peace and quiet time that MM’s preference bought us, Dan and I were able to get in some quality time talking about everything from religion and beliefs, what made good marriages work and others fail and a billion other things that I don’t think I could possibly re-conjure here in an eloquent way. It wasn’t even necessarily a new conversation for us, we talk about these things a lot, but it was nice. And meanwhile MM and his grandpa were having some fun conversations of their own. My dad apparently used the drive to try to get MM excited about his new home, by making up cute “songs” about how we were moving to Wisconsin and that in Wisconsin MM would be getting a NEW BED ROOM, Daddy would be getting a NEW JOB and Mommy would be getting a NEW BABY. And with the help of some repetition and silliness, anytime you asked MM what mommy, daddy or himself would be getting in Wisconsin, he’d be able to tell you that. I was so impressed with my dad’s genius – another reminder about how wonderful grandparents can be. I’ve been trying for weeks to get MM ready for this move, but in that one car ride I think my dad made WAY more progress than I had thus far. It was amazing.

That night we arrived at our hotel at 11pm, exhausted but happy, and pretty much went straight to bed.

Day Two: Waterfalls and Cookie Pie Hybrids in Wauseon

Wednesday morning we left our hotel and drove an hour northwest to see Niagara Falls. I’d done a bit of research and managed to find plenty of things to do and see for free in the state park overlooking the falls. Of course, the price of parking there is $10 per car and we had two – so it was really $20 but we didn’t spend any other money there so I was pretty proud. Dan and I both took lots of pictures and it was beautiful. MM loved being able to run around a bit and stretch his legs. I, on the other hand, felt more pregnant than ever most of the trip – it was a lot of walking and I might have over done it a bit. Still, it was definitely an experience that I’m glad to have had.

That night we stopped at Wauseon, Ohio where we had dinner at this great little restaurant called Smith’s Restaurant & Catering. After a nice dinner (I had the chicken parmesan) we all indulged in their dessert menu which was just awesome – with a wide variety of pies, cheesecake and ice cream, we were all able to have something different. I had a tollhouse pie, something I’ve never had before and for some reason never guessed what it would be – basically this is the perfect pie for me, the cookie lover, in that it’s kind of like taking the ingredients of chocolate chip cookies and turning it into a pie – I fully intend to learn to make this myself as it was delicious. If we ever do this road trip again, I want to stop in Wauseon again just so we can go back to Smith’s Restaurant.

That night we were able to get to bed at much more reasonable hour, after watching the American Idol finale (congrats to Kris Allen!).

to be continued…

*update*

For the second installment, click here.

For the third and final installment, click here.