For spring break we wanted to continue our Capital City tour. However, once it started getting closer to the break the weather reports were not friendly. About 10 days before we were supposed to leave we canceled the trip. We had also gotten news that Josh's grandmother wasn't doing well. We figured we would visit her during the break. She passed away before we left. Instead, we changed to making funeral plans.
We didn't want the entire trip to be depressing for the kids so we decided to take a day get to Kansas and an extra day to get home.
We need to get better at packing for short trips. I packed way too much food, and my husband was convinced we would be bored out of our minds the entire time, so he wanted to take way to many activities to keep us busy while we were in the hotel. We did take a reasonable amount of DVDs for the kids to watch while we were on the road.
We did pack a suitcase for each day. Every hotel we stayed at had an indoor pool. We had a day where we needed a suitcase for the funeral clothes. To keep track of what bag was required for each day I used my planner stickers to label them.
Before we left for the funeral it was still the kids' spring break. Preston had asked since we weren't going on a trip that he could take a camp at the Heard Museum in McKinney Tx. We had promised to take the boys back to the Discovery Science Place in Tyler TX since the last spring break. The Heard was having one-day camps so we were able to do both last week.
On Tuesday, the weather was kind of crappy. It was drizzling on the way to Tyler. At one point I was trying to stop and the brakes on the van activated the antilock brakes and we almost hit a car that was stopped waiting to turn. I was fortunate enough to have control over the vehicle and was able to maneuver around the stopped car without hitting anything. My nerves were shot. We decided to continue on to Tyler. We had a wonderful time. I'll try to post a couple of photos later. We had to get back because Ethan still had band practice. I have a list of things that I still want to take the kids to in Tyler hopefully soon we can take a weekend trip there. There is a state park, children's park, and a couple more museums.
Then Wednesday, I took the van into the shop to have the brakes checked out before we take the trip to Kanas. The rest of the day was consumed with trip prep plans.
Thursday, Preston had his day camp at the Heard. He wasn't excited that it was all about flowers but he loved the camp none the less and can't wait to do more camps there in the future. We got the van back and headed out. We got to Tulsa, OK.
We ran into a family from home. Ethan was super excited to get to see his friend. We spent the morning swimming. Then headed out for lunch. It was chilly but we still decided to go to a park to let the kids run around for a little bit but had a plan B in case it was just too cold. We headed to the Gathering Place to say the park was huge is an understatement. It didn't matter that I was freezing my bottom off the kids wanted to play. We were there for three hours and only saw a very small amount of the park and plan B wasn't needed at all. Hopefully, we can go back when the weather is warmer and get to see more of the park.
Leaving Tulsa and heading towards Kansas, google maps apparently started drinking or something. We looked up fast food restaurants along the path. Chick-fil-a showed up. Yes! something my kids will eat without fussing and not tear up my husband's stomach. Perfect! well, not so perfect. It was in a college student center. Disappointed is the best way to describe my feelings.
Then we ended up eating somewhere else. I don't even remember where. We continued on. Well, the road that we needed to travel on was closed and instead of following the detour signs we followed the way google maps had us go. We ended up going down a dirt road that I think was only for local traffic. oops. I will have to say that google maps did get us to the motel that we had reservations at.
The next day I tried to put in the church the funeral was at, but Google couldn't find it. We asked my father in law and brother in law for the address, they asked the pastor and he wasn't sure what it is. I guess I can't really fault Google for not finding it. Shocking google maps didn't have anything in a town with a population of 540 listed.
After the funeral, we headed toward Oklahoma City. We figured we could still hit one capital while we were out of town. We got into OKC after the capital building had closed for the day but the website listed hours for Sunday. Okay, we will go the next day. We stayed at the Renaissance Hotel Oklahoma City, it is right next to the arena and there was a game about to start when we pulled up. The place was packed with people and it being spring break we had a hard time finding a hotel that wasn't completely sold out. The next morning we went to get the van and since we arrived during the rush the valet forgot to write down where they had parked the car in the garage. Sigh. It turned out they were trying to use the fob that was on the key chain that didn't go to the van to try to find it. The manager had to go out to the garage to find it. It was such a mess. Once we finally got the van we just wanted out of there. I wasn't completely paying attention when I entered capital building into google maps. Apparently, I told it to take us to capital hill which is a private school in the opposite direction that we needed to go. Oops. Once we got the right location entered into the GPS we went right there. But it was 30 minutes later than now. and the second place that we wanted to go was going to be opening soon. The walkway that takes you from the parking lot to the capital building was under construction, we decided to go ahead and just go to the science museum. This is the second time that we have tried to go to this capital and had been emotionally beaten down that we blew it off.
