Road Warrior Momma: #Internationalpeacegarden

June 19, 2015 – Day 17

Winnipeg, MB – Bismarck, ND

396 miles/6.5 hours

Life on the road with Daddy means being flexible with our schedule. Rich had a conference call in the morning, so I got up early, made sure Hunter put in his miles, and packed up the car. The plan was to tour the Manitoba Legislative Building and then come back to pick up Rich. It didn’t work out that way. I pulled onto the capitol grounds and was immediately stopped by a police officer. They were swearing in a new Lieutenant Governor today and we were not allowed to be there. In fact, all the parking surrounding the Capital was roped off. So, all I got was a drive-by photo.

We returned to the hotel and hung out in the lobby and made nuisances of ourselves. Hunter accidentally slammed the corner of a lobby desk chair into my knee and I swear I saw stars. I crumbled and started crying (I felt like Audrey, drama, but it hurt like Hell). Audrey panicked and ran up to the front desk yelling for an ice pack. Camden started crying and Barrett went off the rails, jumping up and down like Tweety Bird. Poor Hunter looked shocked. I rallied, but man, did it hurt.

We were on the road again and fifteen minutes into our drive got hammered by torrential rains. I kid you not. It was long and boring drive to the border, where we stopped to explore the International Peace Garden. It is a beautiful, and indeed peaceful, plot of land that’s maintained by both Canada and the United States. I only wish the sun had been out, because I’m certain it would have been glorious if we’d seen it in colorful full bloom.

At the border we almost had an incident because we couldn’t find Audrey’s passport. Talk about a heart racing! If we’d had to leave her behind, our relations with Canada would go south pretty damn fast. Alas, the border patrol guard found it – it was stuck to one of the boys’ passport.

The drive to Bismarck was beautiful. Stunning. Green. Rolling hills everywhere – and the sun came out (and the angels sang). Seriously though, it was so damn pretty. I felt like a broken record with my repeated exclamations, but I was in awe. It’s so peaceful when you drive across land like that, and there are no other cars – and your kids are quiet because they’re watching a movie.

We had dinner at what we hoped was going to be an excellent restaurant, but it was not. I guess you can’t win them all. When we left it was raining – and my friends, it was the worst rain we’ve encountered on a trip. I haven’t seen rain like that since I was in Puerto Rico, during a hurricane. Nobody was leaving the restaurant. We were all huddled around the front door watching the patio furniture fly around. Then the lights went out. What in the world? I started to panic that perhaps we were about to experience our first Tornado. When the power came back on, and we decided to get out of there.

Rich ran for the car, and pulled right up to the door. We were exposed to the rain (the kids and me) for less than 5 seconds – we were SOAKED. Once everyone was in the car and buckled in, we started laughing. It was crazy. Cammy, however, didn’t think it was funny and started screaming at us. “Why are you all laughing? I think we’re going to die!” Oh, my little guy. I traded seats with Bear and consoled him until we go back to the hotel. Now before I get any nasty emails – we drove 15 miles an hour and the hotel was less than a mile away. I promise.

The hotel was windblown as well – all the outdoor furniture had blown into a corner of the veranda. And the sky looked weird – the storm moved through so fast, that we could see the pink sunset on half the sky and the other half was black. It was almost like Florida.

Quote of the day:

I’m going with Cammy’s declaration of impending doom.