8/2 The Drive

Time to head home.
Throughout this trip (and at home too) people often express surprise that I drive from Traverse City to our various locations in Wisconsin alone with the kids (especially without a DVD player). I always assure them that it's really not bad, the kids are amazing travelers, etc. etc.

So now we start off north out of Minocqua and hang a right on county "J" as we always do...only to come upon a detour because the bridge is out. A very pretty detour along the Rainbow reservoir but a time consuming one and not how I'd like to start my 8 hour drive. Especially because at this point Maya is not living up to her amazing traveler reputation and has whined/cried/fussed the whole time so far.
We finally get back to Hwy 70 just outside of Eagle River (which is suppose to only be about half an hour from the cabin) and Maya promptly sticks her fingers that she is chewing on too far into her mouth, gags and projectile vomits all over the back seat. Alex is of course sympathetic and immediately starts dry heaving.
I dive off the highway into an empty parking lot, Alex bolts out of the truck and heads for the woods so he cannot hear, smell or see any of the evidence.
It took me a long time to clean up the car to an even drivable condition. Wrap up the dirty clothes and put them as far in the back as possible so they hopefully won't smell. And we drive a few minutes down the road to the grocery store to get supplies for the phase II cleanup. $15 worth of paper towels, baking soda, citrus cleaner and a few kitchen size towels later we do more cleanup and get rid of all the stinky garbage.
I am so thankful that this happened on this side of Eagle River and not just past Eagle River because for a long, long time after that is nothing but National Forest.
Just into that stretch of Nat'l Forest I am really still smelling vomit in the car. It's wafting up towards me. I turn back and realize that a bunch ran down into the holes where Maya's carseat straps go down and from the side of the car I totally couldn't see it but now I can.
So we pull over again. Do phase III cleanup.
Now we are good.
Maya is much happier.
The rest of the drive was relatively uneventful. It took us a long time. We made several stops and since we added a good 1.5 hours onto our journey we ended up having to stop for lunch AND dinner instead of the usual one meal.
But we made it home by 8:30 pm and were oh so happy to be there.
And yes, if anyone asks I still tell them my kids are amazing travelers and will gladly make the trek solo with them again.