Tuesday, October 13, 2015

Baby Across America Tour: Diaper Drama

Second in a four-part series of taking a 7-month-old baby and two dogs halfway across America in a minivan. Read Part 1 here.

Daddy’s Log: Day 2, East Ridge, Tenn. 
Miles: 705, Engine hours: 12.8. 11 a.m. EDT, 82, partly sunny, humid

Sorry, Mr. Springsteen,
but this bib speaks the truth.
The start of a new day on the road fully brought home the realization of the things we forgot to bring. Fortunately, none were essential, but would need to be replaced along the way.
After reloading the cooler with ice and spending – seriously – a full half-hour playing Minivan Jenga trying to put everything back in place while corralling the dogs, grabbing something to eat and seeing that the kid’s first tooth STILL hadn’t broken through, it was time to roll westward again.
Despite the lack of sleep, I was starting to slowly emerge from the head cold, but my wife was getting hit far harder than I ever was. We both knew she’d be lucky to drive for more than an hour that day. At least the weather wasn’t too bad quite yet.
Once again, about 45 minutes into the journey, Kirby sounded the poop alarm again. He is nothing if not consistent.


Shortly afterward, we almost had our first diaper blowout. With my wife stuck pumping, I found a convenience store … which, of course, had no changing station or room to even put him down on a pad on the floor.
The store did, however, have a small spare one-seat bathroom with a lid on the toilet seat. Desperate times and all that, right? The drama was high as my smiling, slightly wiggling boy laid on the too-small seat with both his legs dangling off the front.
How we both managed to make the change without either of us slipping or getting poop on anything outside the diaper remains a mystery. It was a sign things had to go better that day, right?
Despite slogging through midday Nashville construction, we made decent time through Tennessee and rolled into Kentucky after about four hours. Needing to stop, we pulled over at the Kentucky Welcome Center off I-24.
I’m not one for hyperbole, and maybe it was the cold meds, all the time commanding the tour bus and lack of sleep, but that was easily the most elegant welcome center I’d ever walked into. I’m not sure even Donald Trump could improve it. It was yyyuge, luxuriously appointed, quiet and clean.
The most elegant, luxurious interstate
welcome center we'd ever seen.
(Except for the bathroom noises.)

All of which made the bathroom stop even better, when I got stuck next to a stall containing a guy giving low, strained “Oooh, yeah!” grunts. Seriously. Like, every five seconds.
After a brief time to just sit still and grab a snack, my wife took the wheel because even with the sunshine and decent driving conditions, I was wiped out.
Caffeine or not, I’ve never been able to sleep longer than a half-hour or so while in moving vehicles, so between a cranky, teething 7-month-old who wanted food and attention every 10-15 minutes, there was little time to recharge even mentally. It didn’t help that we kept landing on “Honey I’m Good” by Andy Grammer and “Bad Blood” by Taylor Swift way too often when switching radio stations.
That’s not to say we didn’t have fun in the back. Hey, Daddy can almost always come up with a three-minute playtime burst.

Nothing like an impromptu car concert to keep our headliner happy.
As we invaded the Commonwealth, which makes no small note of being the BIRTHPLACE of our 16th Commander in Chief (take that, “Land of Lincoln,” right?), we somehow turned down the opportunity to check out the National Quilt Museum near Exit 4, and entered southern Illinois. St. Louis, here we come.
The drive through most of Illinois on 24, 57 and 64 went fairly well, until we started seeing signs of giant, severe storms over the St. Louis metro area.
The stretch of I-64 is not a whole lot different than the stretches of interstate I regularly drove through the Dakotas growing up: Several miles between exits, most of which were either roads that required a few more miles to reach a small town or a small store that likely has limited amenities.
We were still at least 40 miles east of St. Louis, and my belly made it quite clear we had to stop before running into any bad weather that would add time to the rest of the day’s trip.
Seeing a few buildings near I-64, I pulled off in what turned out to be a small town that consisted of maybe 8 houses, a co-op feed place and a gas station/convenience store.
Walking into the store, I knew this wouldn’t be ideal, but options were limited.
The stall did have a door, but no lock and no latch. It also had some sweet razor-blade carvings of “Metallica,” “Penis” a curse word with way too many U's a swastika and, of course, “Obama is a muslim communist!”
In essence, like most any rural men’s bathroom I had ever had the misfortune to spend time in, though this one did have The Gentlemen’s Fragrance Center and also offered something called "Genuine Horny Goat Weed." While the dispenser clearly exuded elegance, I felt compelled to pass up my chance at spraying “Polo” on myself.
Elegant, no?
Uh, I'll pass, but thanks for offering.



Outside of a bizarre, poorly signed construction detour that forced us into downtown St. Louis on a route doubled back upon itself, the rest of the day’s drive went without incident, thankfully, and we pulled into our destination about 8-1/2 hours after we started, only about 90 minutes longer than we had hoped.
Looking back now, even the toilet-seat diaper change was nothing compared with what loomed ahead.

Daddy’s Log: Day 3, St. Louis metro
Miles: 1,165, Engine hours: 21.3.

A planned full day of rest before heading to South Dakota to see my family on our tour’s first leg.  A day of sweet, sweet sleep while the grandparents got to spend plenty of time with the boy, even though the head cold kept my wife in bed nearly the entire day, which wasn’t great. It WAS nice not to have to play Minivan Jenga for a day.


Daddy’s Log: Day 4, St. Louis metro 
Miles: 1,165. 10:30 a.m. Rain, 68 degrees. (Remember, this is early July)

With a 600-plus-mile trip to South Dakota ahead of us, and a rainy day ahead along our route on I-70, we had hoped to get rolling by 10:30 or 11 a.m. so we could deal with slower traffic and still likely reach my parents’ place near sunset, which would hopefully avoid the boy’s nighttime extended solos.
As Minivan Jenga began again, rain began falling. We didn’t think anything of it. After all, in Florida, even a 15-minute deluge doesn’t mean much. Just wait for the heavy stuff to pass and you’re good to go.
Yeah, well …
Trust me: Playing Minivan Jenga in the pouring rain is no sweet dream.
The rain picked up in a hurry, and within 10 minutes, had equaled the heavy downpours we get at home. Only problem was it didn’t appear ready to stop, and, unlike in Florida, the already-soaked ground can’t hold as much rain.
Thinking all the good-byes had been said, and the last of what we’d need was ready for takeoff, I rounded up the dogs and the cooler and headed inside to get our headliner and tour manager.
It was just before 11 and despite the rain, things seemed to be on track.
Except they weren’t quite ready. No problem. It’d only be 5-10 minutes and we’d be ready to roll.
Then, a few minutes later, I looked outside.
The end of this driveway sits a few feet lower than the street, and literally within a couple of minutes, torrents of rainwater had turned the 10-15 feet behind our back tires into a small river. We might have been able to get through had we left at that instant – maybe.
But after just a few more minutes, the pool of water was so deep that had we tried to back out, the bottom of the van’s body almost certainly would have been in the water.
We weren’t going anywhere just yet. Everything we had packed, including both dogs, would have to wait out the rain delay in the van.
By this point, my shirt, shoes and parts of my shorts were unleashing trickles of water. As the clock dragged on, any hope of us reaching our destination by sundown, or even within an hour of it, was gone. Hell, getting there by midnight seemed like a prize.
With neither my wife or I completely over our colds and nowhere near fully rested, it had clearly sunk in why touring bands either hire a driver or have more than one adult who can take the wheel for a while.
But the tour had to continue. We had concert dates and adoring fans to meet.
Finally, at about 11:20, the rain let up, and with assurances the new river usually recedes fairly quickly, now it was a tired time watching Mother Nature pit two of her forces against each other: Gravity vs. weather: Who would win? Exciting, right?
Yet another 20 minutes later, the lake/river had dropped some, and though it didn’t seem low enough to back through yet, a quick look at the radar showed another large, heavy cell bearing down on the area. Time to go outside and measure just how deep that water was.

After a quick check and briefly considering just how much an escape across the front lawn would tear up the overly soaked grass, the choice was either go then and risk bottoming out or begin another round of Minivan Jenga and wait for what might be hours.


Baby Across America Tour: Behind the scenes
Part 1: Promotion and the launch party
Part 2: Diaper Drama

No comments:

Post a Comment