Thursday, March 3, 2011

Road Trip! ... Norah-style

I remember back to my pre-kid days when my girlfriends and I would take little road-trips.  Headed down to Denver to go to the Grizzly Rose, perhaps. :) In college, my roommate and I would load up her car for holiday breaks and drive over the passes to the other side of Colorado to our families.  We made sure we had our favorite music to play, plenty of snacks to munch on and our favorite drinks to sip.  The miles would fly by as we sang out loud to Big Head Todd, turned our fingers orange by eating too many Cheetos and drank a bladder full of Dr. Pepper.  Such fun memories!

Now, fast-forward 15 years ...

In the past few months, I have found myself with a couple of opportunities to re-create these past road-trip experiences with my girl, Norah.  But they ended up being a bit different than I'd anticipated because everything Norah does is done Norah-style!

In January, we drove down to Montrose to pick up my little Petey bird.  This trip takes about one hour, each way.  Not too long, but long enough that we needed to have some entertainment to keep the drive fun.  Brett and I took several minutes to load some of Norah's favorite teenybopper music on a disc:  High School Musical, Hannah Montana, and the usual Kellum theme songs.  She asked if she could grab a few CD's, too.  We loaded up the van with the empty bird cage, the tunes and our bottles of water.  Road trip!

As we hit the highway, Norah asked if we could put on a CD.

"Sure!  What do you want to listen to?  High School Musical?"

"Mmm ... nah.  I'll pick."

She handed me an Adventures in Odyssey disc.

"Put on the first one.  It's scary.  But ... not too scary."

"Okey-doke."  Not Taio Cruz, huh?  Maybe later ...

As we finished up the not-too-scary radio story, she piped up from the back-seat, "Did you know the policewoman was going to be the bad guy?  I didn't the first time I listened to it."

"Nope ... they tricked us for sure.  Now what do you want to listen to?  Hannah Montana?"

"No ... let's listen to the Muppets."

Huh?  "Okay ..."

We finished our trip listening to Fozzie Bear wiggle his ears. :)

On the return trip, Norah acquiesced and we listened to a little High School Musical, but she really wanted to listen to Jack Johnson's Curious George soundtrack ... which, of course, was fine by me.  She reported to the rest of the family on our return that we'd had an awesome time ... so I guess our first road trip was a success!

A month later while we were visiting Gramps & Grammy in Denver, Norah and I had the opportunity to drive down to Denver University for a collegiate gymnastics meet.  Once again, we would be traveling for about an hour each way, so we needed to have our supplies.  We stopped off at Subway for sandwiches, we packed a bag with drinks, our camera and our iPod.  Time to hit the road!

Since we had our iPod this time, we had any song, artist, and album in our collection available to listen to.  This promised to be a fun drive!

As I merged onto HWY 36, Norah asked if we could put on some music.

"Sure ... here's the iPod, just let me know when to plug it in."

Norah pushed a few buttons, scanned a few lists and handed me back the iPod.  I plugged it in and heard ... Click and Clack the Tappet Brothers!

"Car Talk??  Really?"

"Yeah!  They're funny!"

As we headed south, we laughed along with Tom and Ray as they answered, criticized and confused their radio listeners.  I don't know how much Norah really understood about the discussions regarding carburetors and oil leaks, but she certainly seemed to enjoy it.  I could tell she was actually paying attention when she remarked, "There can't be a third half of the show."

"Nope ... they're just being their usual silly selves."

We arrived at DU just as the Car Talk Guys shared their weekly puzzler.

On the way back, I asked if she wanted to listen to music or finish up the podcast.

"Ummm ... let me see."

She took the iPod from my hand and proceeded to get sucked into some silly air-hockey game.  As we drove along in the dark (and the music-less-ness) I could hear the "boing, pling, twong" of the game.  In my rear-view mirror, I could see Norah's smile in the glow of the iPod screen.

At one point I heard her mutter, "There's nothing better than playing video games in the dark."

Hmmmm ... again, not quite what I had expected for our road trip, but ...

Norah was having a great time,
I was enjoying time with just my girl,
and it was a fun snapshot of the personality and individuality of my Norah.

My silly, wonderful, Muppet-adoring, Car Talk-giggling, air-hockey-playing, mystery-loving Norah!

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A little update on my mother-in-love:  She has been moved to the rehab floor and is beginning the strenuous job of getting up and moving!  You think of her ... please pray for Strength, Stability, Good Spirits and Endurance.  Thanks!


1 comment:

  1. I loved traveling with you three. It's just 'being' together that makes it so special.

    ReplyDelete

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