The Final Countdown

(Yes, you'll have that Europe song in your head for the rest of the day now.  Just like me.  Sorry.)

Today, our departure day, is at last here. Bags and bins are almost packed. (Is it possible that they'll all fit in the car? Or might we have to bump one of the children?) With any luck, we'll all be recovered from the various minor health crises which have reared their ugly heads in the last week just to give me heartburn (though I'm still living under the shadow of the fever/sore throat bug which has serially hit everyone in the family except me).

We've been planning this trip for a long time. The five of us, our trusty minivan, and five weeks to see a good chunk of the country. We're hoping that we've scheduled our adventure in a sweet spot between the hassles of diapers and toddlers (Lanie will be 5 in September) and the teenage years where spending five weeks in a car with your family is its own special circle of hell (Zoe will be 11 in November). And evidently there are some new laws in place that you can't undertake a voyage like this without having a blog about it, so I'm trying. Though it's possible that once the trip actually starts I'll revert to laziness and procrastination and you'll never hear from me again.

So far, we have been told we're crazy for the following reasons:

- We are not bringing a DVD player with us. The kids will need to resort to looking out the window, like Laura and Mary did from their covered wagon (but with air conditioning!) My friend Charles is skeptical of this strategy and wants to set up a webcam in our car so he and my other co-workers can observe firsthand how things go TV-free. He is envisioning a sort of reality-TV show, perhaps a cross between The Amazing Race, Fear Factor, and Supernanny.

- We have folded down the back row of seats for much-needed storage space, so all three kids will be sitting in a line behind us. Nadia has cleverly nominated Zoe to sit in the middle, pointing out that she and Lanie don't get along very well. (My dear friend Wendy, who was one of the first to tell me that the seating arrangement is unwise, is herself going to be spending the next year BIKING through Europe with her FIVE children. So we need to take her advice with a grain of salt.)

- At the places where we're camping, we are sleeping in an actual tent, rather than an RV/pop-up camper/etc. (Luckily we'll have all the privacy we could want since we have a "two room" tent -- meaning there is a layer of sheer fabric that hangs down in the middle.)

I do have some anxiety about all the car time, and have overcompensated by (a) loading approximately 18,000 hours of family-friendly audiobooks onto the iPod, and (b) buying and making a gazillion books/games/art supplies/etc. for use in the car. They are individually wrapped and will be handed out as bribes for good behavior. The girls will also start each day with a couple of dollars in their "accounts", and will be docked cash for various behavioral infractions. Sometimes you need both a carrot and a stick, I say. (Those who know the children at all well can probably make accurate bets on who will end up flush with cash and who will immediately go bankrupt.)

The first leg of the trip will be a short one, just down to my mom's in western MA on Friday night. This will give us a 2 1/2-hour head start in getting to our first real destination -- scenic Buffalo, NY! (OK, we do not expect to spend any actual time in Buffalo, other than sleeping at the economical Red Roof Inn before heading on to Niagara Falls the next morning.) We'll be stopping here and there along the way -- Howe Caverns, and maybe the Dinosaur Barbeque in Bob's old Syracuse stomping grounds. Anyone have any other suggestions for upstate NY? (Before you say it, I have already looked into the Jello Museum and I don't think we'll make it there during there opening hours.)

Postscript from Bob:
Meanwhile, as the feet on the street of this operation, I am managing to pick up some integral items for our trip across the prairie. How many travel soap dishes did the Ingalls have in their wagon in 1877? The written accounts are surprisingly vague on this. We now have two: A green one from WalMart (the last in the bin) that I picked up a few days back with some help from Heather Anderson, and a white one I just bought at our local Rite Aid with absolutely no help from my daughters. Negative help, to be honest. Zoe wanted the purple one. She's still miffed. It's the store's fault, really, for having two different colors.