After spending almost 2 weeks in southern Utah, we beelined across the country to Hot Springs, Arkansas. We stopped briefly in Albuquerque, New Mexico to visit with a friend and see Petroglyphs National Monument. Then it was onto Hot Springs National Park with a stop in Oklahoma City to exchange our rental van. In Hot Springs, we explored the park, the downtown area and went to the Arkansas Alligator Farm and Petting Zoo.

7/29/2023

We are 2 days into our 3 days of driving from Utah to Arkansas, and the van is vibrating like it shouldn’t for the last 2 hours.  When we rented the van, they gave us one with 50,000 miles on it.  We’ve added over 5000 miles to it.  I kind of expected a break down when I saw the mileage and the shape of the interior…They are hard miles.   We are still mobile but there is definitely something wrong with the car.  However, I am having a hard time rolling with this disruption and the logistics.   Fear of losing money.  Fear of missing out.  Fear of being responsible for it all.  

7/31/2023

I am now in possession of a back seat to a Chevy Express and an extra tank of gas from our exchange.   We drove our vibrating van 100 miles to exchange that took 2 hours due to a poorly programmed computer system and irate customers.  Unfortunately, they exchanged our 15 passenger Chevy Express for a 12 passenger Ford Transit.  We left the last row of the Chevy in our house on the East Coast to give us room for cargo.  Now the van is in Oklahoma without the seats.  I’ll return the seats when I return the van in 2 weeks, but I bet these two shall never meet again.  So lots of melt downs yesterday as many of us were over tired from staying up late. And we survived.

8/1/2023

1. Oklahoma is not as flat as I remember or attribute to it…at least not the part we drove.
2. I think we are burnt out.  After 3 solid days of driving and 5 weeks of seeing and doing, I am having a hard time finding the motivation to go see and do more here in Hot Springs.   And yesterday when I said we were going out, the kids only wanted to stay behind and keep playing.  (This Air BNB has lots of board games.) Yes, doing nothing isn’t wasted time, but even I have a hard time with this when I know we probably won’t be back.  Working to readjust my expectations for today.  (I already had to give up on my massage as the place is closed on Tuesdays.   ).
3. The husband is getting both dogs the next time we are in a hotel.  After having them two days in a row and being woken up early etc., it is his turn.  In the past we’ve split them up but not this time.  I told him this and he gave me what I interpreted as “Ok, but I don’t think so.”  Now I need to stick to this statement in two weeks.
4. There are a lot more trucks driving the southern route of the US than the northern route.

After Hot Springs, we went to Memphis, Tennessee for a couple of days. We visited Beale Street, the National Civil Right Museum, and the Historic Peabody for the duck walk. We also had good BBQ and fried chicken.

8/4/2023

1. Hot and humid is hotter than hot and dry.  I knew this but to feel it so dramatically over the course of a week as we drove east, drives it home.
2. My husband is horribly out of shape.  I knew this, but I think he is finally realizing it. He always says to me, “I work out more than you think I do.” And maybe he does, but lifting a weight in his office and slowly pacing the house does nothing for cardiovascular health. He says things like if you tell me to go to the doctor, I will go and then he will give me a BS reason why he can’t make the appointment at the last moment. I want to support him in being healthier because I want him to stay around, but I can’t be responsible for his health. He will say things like “ask me to walk the dogs with you,” but more times than not he says he is too “busy” so I stop asking.  I have too many other worries and anxiousness that this is one item I am consciously trying to shed other than making appointments.  But sometimes it feels like because I love him, I should worry and nag more and take more of this on.  And I am also annoyed as his unfitness limits what we can do with him and if he is going to attend an outing, everything has to be planned around what he can do.  It also doesn’t help that on some health items, we have fundamental different outlooks.
3. As we have been discussing, we all need to be kinder to ourselves or maybe see ourselves with the awe our kids see.  I am driving a big 12 person van.  And twice last week, the 10 year old was in awe of my maneuvering the van in tight spaces.  When he said with all honesty that was great maneuvering, my first knee jerk was not it isn’t.  Why is that?  I caught myself and said thank you but all I could think though was someone who drove this type of van all the time would do much better.  Why do we expect such perfection and knowing how to do everything great.  My kid thought I did great.  I did do great.  I didn’t hit anything and got the car out of the parking space.  Working on that grace and compassion.
4. Funny note: Last year, the week before school started, all the kids picked one activity and we went and did them as a last hurrah since we had no camps.  They were 2 hour activities and we had a lot of fun.  The 7 year old commented today, “Aren’t we doing that again when we get back?” Uhm, no.  We’ve been doing all summer.
5. The pandemic has really hit downtowns hard.  Memphis downtown is an interesting mix of rundown area, tourist area and what I assume are offices.  However, there is very little traffic.  Maybe due to the heat there aren’t that many tourist and without the offices filled, it is empty from what the density indicates it should be. St. Louis was similar.