Germany Day One: The Drive

We left the apartment by 7:30 Friday morning. By 7:35 we realized we had forgotten to bring Muriel’s sippy cup. By this time we were already on the auto route and it would have taken at least 20 minutes to get to the next exit, go back to the apartment, find the sippy cup, and return to the auto route, so we quickly decided we’d get a sippy cup in route.

Muriel turned out to be a much better car passenger than Emily or I anticipated. On Thursday night I had discovered that we had never adjusted her car seat to account that she wasn’t a newborn. I’m thinking the extra room might have made her a bit happier.

We made good time to Basel with limited screaming (either me or the kids) and pulled off at a mall to search for a sippy cup. For some odd reason the store didn’t open until 10, so we had time for bathroom breaks and to run the kids for a few minutes before finding a replacement sippy cup. We jumped in the car and headed towards France. “Jumped” may have been the wrong word – getting three kids in the car seats isn’t a quick process.

We traveled through eastern France at a very slow rate. At one point we were stopped for about 45 minutes due to a significant amount of hay being spilled on the road. At one point we were passed by a flock (Rowan’s term) of tractors that were going way faster than we were. We had a quick bathroom break at a McDonalds. The older kids enjoyed their McNuggets while Muriel ate her jar of baby food and started in on the fries. The girl behind the counter had issues understanding my horrible accent, but I don’t think my version of McNugget sounded anything like Big Mac, which is what she tried to give me.

The last 2 hours went very well and we arrived at the campground about 3:30. The GPS indicated it should have been a 5.75 hour trip, so we didn’t do too bad given we had three kids and lost 45 minutes due to traffic.

The car has three rows of seats and Rowan was in the very back. It went much better than expected. The kids normally drop their water bottle in the first few minutes and then proceed to complain about being thirsty for the rest of the trip, but Rowan managed to keep his water bottle and snacks within reach for the entire trip.

The mobile home is a bit small. I’m surprised they let 5 people stay here. There isn’t a place for the portable crib they provided unless Muriel sleeps in the living room/kitchen or the beds in one of the rooms are rearranged. We decided rearranging the furniture would be the better option.