Road trip!

A couple of weeks ago we took Shreya on her first long trip. Tom had been invited to attend a workshop in San Diego, and a combination of my not wanting to remain in Albuquerque in sole charge of Shreya, and his not wanting to be away from her for so long led to our deciding to pack up the car and all drive out there. Google maps proclaimed the distance to be 814 miles and the driving time to be just under 12 hours. Our plan was to leave on Monday the 8th around 3:00 p.m. after Tom had taught his class, spend Monday night somewhere along the way, and arrive in San Diego sometime on Tuesday evening. However due to unexpected (although we should have expected them) Shreya-related and other delays, we weren't ready to set out until 7:30. At that point, we could have just decided to leave in the morning, but that would have caused further delays (since we would have to get ready all over again) so we just left. Somewhere in Arizona, late at night, we encountered a storm. Snow was coming down thick and fast, and we couldn't see anything out of the windshield except the blinking red tail-lights of the truck Tom decided to follow. Fortunately, the GPS that Mike gave us for Christmas helped us find a place to stop for the night, in a little town that had lost its internet, cable and phone lines in the storm. Still, at least there was electricity and hot running water. The next day, we ploughed on, through the piled up snow (no, there wasn't actually any on the highway...) past Flagstaff, came out of the snow terriory, to Phoenix, and on and on, westward. Shreya slept peacefully (like a baby?!) while the car was moving. Every time we stopped for gas or a restroom however, she woke up and wanted to be fed. When we finally reached La Jolla, it was not Tuesday evening, but 3 a.m. on Wednesday!

We spent three days in San Diego. Tom attended talks at the workshop (and gave one). Shreya and I just explored the UCSD campus. At the north of the campus there is a big eucalyptus grove, (half mile by half mile?) where we went for a walk. For once, Shreya did not sleep through the walk. Instead she seemed quite excited by the trees and cooed and turned her head constantly. And when I sat under a tree to feed her, she was too distracted to nurse, even though it had been over four hours since her last meal. I had never before seen her so taken by a place. Maybe she liked the trees, but she's certainly never shown an interest in the cottonwoods near the river in Albuquerque. Maybe she liked the smell of the eucalyptus, which certainly filled the air.

On Friday afternoon, Tom skipped talks and we went to the beach. It was too cold really, to do proper beach stuff like wallowing in sand, but Shreya did stare at some seagulls. And there were some California sea lions but by that time Shreya had gone to sleep and not even the strong scent of marine mammals woke her. Tom and I had seen sea lions years ago, on a previous visit to La Jolla, at the same beach, so perhaps Shreya will see them there another time.

We also saw lots of friends, all of whom, quite rightly, expressed how cute Shreya was.

And then came Saturday and it was time to return. This time we knew that it was going to take a long time, and we abandoned the vague notion we had had of going to the Petrified Forest on the way back, and just drove straight back. Even so it was dinnertime on Sunday evening when we finally reached home, though Tom blames part of the delay this time to the fact that the GPS routed us through the middle of Arizona on state highways, instead of on the interstate. That was two straight days of driving with a baby, of feeding her in the car, pulled into a rest area, of changing her diaper by putting her down on the trunk of the car, when nowhere else was available. All in all, it was craziness, but still in a strange sort of way, rather fun. I think we will take her on more road trips. One thing we learned though, and a piece of advice to other parents thinking of taking their baby on the road -- budget nearly double the time that Google Maps says it will take to get there. They don't account for refueling the car, and they certainly don't account for refueling the baby. There are no ten-minute stops with a little one!