Day Trippers

On Saturday we had yet another first around here. Our first day trip with the twins.

We went up to Breckenridge to hang out with Aunt Jenni Fast-Hands, have lunch with Pop-Pop and Nana-Sue and deliver Caitlin to cousin Max for a sleepover. We also got to see their addition under construction at long last. It looks fabulous!

We learned many things on that simple trip.

1. When planning arrival times, for ever two hours of drive time you need to include one hour of nursing time. So a "simple" 2 hour drive becomes 3, a five hour drive (to, say, Grammy's house) will now take about seven hours.
2. We may also have to add in extra time for 6 year old shenanigans.
3. It would be most helpful to nurse like mad and then immediately get into the car. Eating on the road would have gotten us closer to our final destination sooner.
4. Bring slings. While the restaurant (Another first! Eating out in a restaurant with twins.) was very accommodating of our long stroller, it probably wouldn't have worked out in a different venue.
5. There ain't no way in hell we can actually leave the house before 11 am or 12 pm due to the multiple rounds of feeding, changing, burping and becoming conscious after a night of same.

So, bleary eyed and fuzzy headed we arrived in Breckenridge and had a nice time. I was glad to finally get up and out of the house, but I think it's pretty safe to say we won't be doing another such trip for several more weeks or months. We need more time between nursing.

Then there was the Adventure in Fear: Snow Edition that took place when we went to leave.

You see, here at home it's fall. Cool, sometimes rainy, but in the 50s or 70s. In Breck, it started off over cast and then started snowing as the evening wore on. When we left, it was dark with a couple inches of snow on the ground. Not a problem, ordinarily except that:

1. We don't have snow tires on yet
2. We were driving on unpaved roads for the first bit
   
3. We were driving on steep, curvy, switchback mountain roads for the next bit after the unpaved part
4. Snow was falling pretty heavily and visibility was getting poor
   

The 30-45 minutes it took to get us from Breck to the paved highway down the mountain immediately hit my Top Ten list of scariest life experiences.

Did I mention that I have New Infant Driving Paranoia*? Oh yeaaaaah! My highly developed imagination? Of absolutely no help in these sorts of situations because, really, who needs to envision their immediate death scene with husband and twins in tow? With sound, even?

So there we were, Eric driving while I was quietly putting away bottles of juice, books and assorted other items to reduce the number of "missiles" that we'd have to contend with should the car flip over as we sailed off the edge of the road. This is not to say that I have no confidence in Eric's driving, I totally do. He's been driving longer than I have and in far worse weather conditions. I just have no confidence in anyone else on the road or the car's ability to stick to said road.

Fortunately, we were just fine. Although scared. That slip-sliding-away feeling and hydroplaning? So not fun.

Another first: death defying driving in a snowstorm. Whee!




* New Infant Driving Paranoia: The absolute certainty that everyone else driving on the road near you is a complete lunatic and is about to crash into your car killing you and your newborn infants. Or maybe just your infants - which ever concept is worse for you.