how we roll

I am cheating by posting this picture of Alice-- it isn't from
today, it's from last month's trek to Eastern Washington, which
also explains why she's still facing backward in this photo

We're on our way to Portland again...

By way of Astoria for one night (Astoria: made famous by The Goonies and Kindergarten Cop). I've never been to Astoria, though Chip has visited there many times. I've gotten the question a few times from you guys: WHY all the traveling? The short version? Because my heart leaves for days at a time each time Chip walks out the door and drives down the driveway - Alice and I safely left behind at the house, left behind to do all those normal daily things that we need to do like visit friends and do the dishes and go for walks and live life as normally as possible. But those things are never much fun when my heart isn't in them - my heart that sits there with Chip as he goes to far-off locales as Humptulips, Washington (you think I'm kidding? I'm so not...) or Winthrop, Washington or even the big city of Spokane, Washington. His work has him going to all these places, and normally he isn't in one town for very long - usually one night. Alice and I don't go with him when he's going to be town-hopping because to do so would be both CRAZY and almost IMPOSSIBLE. See, when Chip took this job a year ago, we made an agreement that we'd keep Alice's life as close to normal as we could. But I also committed to travel with Chip at least once a month. Which means that I take a ton of stuff with us on the road. Things like Alice's booster seat, her stroller, and her pack n play. Not to mention the diapers, the wipes, the clothes, and the food she normally eats. All this to give Alice a sense of normalcy even when we're living at the Embassy Suites in Portland for a week.

This week's packed items includes the humidifier, because Alice is in the particular week in her teething situation known as ALL SNOT ALL THE TIME. The humidifier seems to help her sleep. So we brought it. We also brought a nightlight (for seeing Alice in a dark nighttime hotel room), electrical plug covers (because I'm tired of trying to cover every available outlet with furniture), and an entire 1/2 gallon of organic whole milk in the cooler (so glad that we're done with the nasty and HOLY COW EXPENSIVE formula, but seriously someone needs to come up with easily transported whole milk for the child on the road).

It's so nice to be traveling WITH my heart this week - which really makes up for the craziness we go through on these trips. I am a true creature of habit, and if you didn't know that BEFORE, than you certainly should NOW because dude, who takes that much stuff with them on a week-long trip?


See you on the other side, duders.