The first day out

It is 8:35 in Redbank New Jersey. All five of us are here, safely in the hotel. It's happening, this baby bus adventure. It's actually happening

Two of us drove 36 hours or so straight from Austin to New Jersey.Those two, the two men, Dave and my Dad, are extremely tired. I'd ask Dave to write an entry about his experience if I was a mean blog obesessed meany, but I won't. Instead I asked him for a descriptive haiku of the trip. Here's what he gave me.

Many miles no stop
So hungry we ate Hardees
should have though that through

I think that's a pretty good description of the long haul experience.

Mom and Lisel and me had the "Baby's First Flight Experience." My amazing sister Katherine got up way before she needed to to pick us up and shepherd us to the airport. And she was nice enough to take this picture. Here's us at 6:30 in the morning.


We look pretty positive don't we. That's because we hadn't really thought through all it takes to travel with a baby. Dude! Getting through security was an all day task. In addition to the partial disrobing the TSA requires of all of us, we were also required to remove the baby from the carrier that we are required by law to put her in if we want to transport her in a car. Then we had to break down her snap in stroller thingy, and put everything through the X-Ray machine, and retrieve it all, the redress ourselves and secure the little one. Phew! I was so happy to have my Mom there. Two hands wouldn't have been enough.

And dude, next time, I'm taking the bare minimum required to get me to the next destination. Baby stuff and a diaper bag. That's it. Streamlined.

I have to say though that I have never been treated better in airport. The usually surly TSA employees were positively, well positive. And helpful! They explained what we needed to do, and patiently waited while we fumbled through our first attempt. They're usually such meanies. Call it baby magic.

The airline employees were especially sweet (though they're usually pretty nice on Southwest). Our flight attendant, Naomi tried to hook the carseat into the plane seat but it was a no go, so I got to hold Lisel during the whole flight.

Even the other passengers were nice, which I didn't expect. I thought no one liked the combination of planes and babies, but people actually seemed to dig the tiny baby thing. Unexpected.

Lisel spent the first half of the flight snoozing, and the second half sleepily feeding. I was pretty delightful. No screaming, which was a plus, and lots of good baby holding time. And I got caught up on my celebrity gossip courtesy of OK Magazine. It was a great first flight.

The guys picked us up at the airport, and we drove a couple of hours to Eatontown New Jersey. And now, here we are. I'm tired, Dave is tired, and tommorrow we have the first show of the tour. So I have to get to bed now. Check out this picture. I now feel like Lisel looks.



Tomorrow, the first show!