Travel Days

We made it to Charlottesville. Olive killed it on her first airport trip, her first moving walkway and her first flight. Her first big travel experience. All great adventurers start somewhere right? Olive gets to start in the beautiful state of Virginia. We thought it would be a disaster, but this girl delights in surprising us. Instead of getting nervous and throwing up and insisting her mother carry her everywhere, she acted like a seasoned travel veteran. It was seriously the smoothest trip ever. By the time we got to our hotel late last night, Dain joked that we would probably have a mountain lion in our room because we still couldn't believe how well it was going.

We arrived at the airport three hours early. We anticipated that Olive would get nervous and throw up in the car or the parking ramp or right as we walked in (as she typically does in new places,) but instead she was beyond excited to be at the airport. Almost giddy in fact. Admittedly, we prepared her. We have been talking about it for months along with reading books about the airplane and the airport and watching online videos. We might be the only family in America that frequents the kids TSA page, but it has a pretty sweet video about going through security. At least for a two year old. When we got to the security checkpoint Olive screamed out "tunnel" and "toys" knowing that her toys and bag had to go through the "tunnel" to be screened. Another thing that made it easier was our own security escort, which is a service the TSA offers for passengers with special needs. Since we had medical liquids to declare, a toddler that we realistically thought could throw up in the security line and a lot of baggage, it was a no brainer. Our escort Randy was awesome. He helped us with our bags and let us bring our luggage cart through. Olive even walked through the metal detector by herself.

Only our cooler bag of medical liquids required extra screening. A TSA agent unpacked the bag and swabbed every item up and down to check for explosive residue. He was very nice and had no problem putting on a clean pair of gloves when we asked him. It was an amazingly quick and easy screening. We had two and a half hours to kill, which was easily filled by sitting down at French Meadow for dinner and walking on the moving walkways and escalators to both amuse and wear out Olive. She insisted on pulling her bag the entire time, which was cute and pretty hilarious as she entered and exited the moving walkways. She only fell over once on the walkway as she figured out that the glass on the side does not move, but she jumped right back up like a champ.

Once at our gate, we decided to board early as soon as they allowed it because we were still worried she may freak out on the airplane. She didn't. She loved it. She sat down and buckled her seat belt and then proceeded to randomly yell out "Ready!" and "Go!" quite loudly. She did grip my arm once the plane started moving, but she was very calm.  She really liked everything about it. She played with toys and stickers and tape and my phone a little bit. We only pulled out about a tenth of our arsenal. Her favorite activity was walking around near the back of the plane. She also took two sips of her apple juice that she was proud to order and licked a few pretzels. Our only snafu was that there came a point when we needed to change her diaper, and we learned that there was not a changing pad onboard. So that was fun. At the end we were even complimented on how well behaved our child was, which was not at all how we thought it would go down. Such a nice surprise.

The flight was just over two hours, and it went by very fast. The only glitch came after we landed when they were unable to attach the jetway to the plane. There was a short delay, and then they opened the stairs and had us walk onto the tarmac, which is a much more exciting way to exit a plane. Olive enjoyed it because she got a great view of the outside of the airplane. It was after 11 p.m. when we arrived in Richmond. We took a shuttle to a hotel near the airport, where we all crashed into bed.

After breakfast at the hotel this morning, Dain took the shuttle back to the airport to pick up our rental car. We ended up with an Impala that doesn't have a key fob and that Dain thinks needs air in at least one tire. So that's how we're rolling. Olive randomly yells out "Obbie in the rental car" so we think she likes it.

Olive had a minor meltdown this morning wanting to go home. We're pretty sure that she expected to just get back on the plane today. To lift her spirits we found a fun park in Richmond to spend some time at this morning. She had a blast, and it definitely changed the tone of our day. After our park detour, we arrived around one o'clock at our Charlottesville hotel. We didn't fly into Charlottesville because there were no direct flights here from Minneapolis, and we didn't want to have a connection for her first flight just in case she hated it. Delta offers one daily direct flight to Richmond so we opted for the 90 mile drive.

Luckily our room was ready early when we did arrive here today so that we could drop off our bags before our next outing. We ended up going to Carter Mountain Apple Orchard this afternoon. It was an absolute madhouse circus. Clearly we didn't think it through. Scenic apple orchard on a beautiful sunny fall Sunday? Yep. Super crowded. There was a traffic jam to get up there, but once you make that turn, you commit. There was no turning back as the narrow road wound up the mountain. It all worked out though. Olive got to go on a tractor ride, which is quite possibly her favorite activity ever. We were really trying hard to make it a fun day for her because we know she's nervous about everything.

After that hoopla, we grabbed dinner and made a Target run for all of our necessities. Then this evening we tried to unpack and organize our home for the next few weeks. Living in a hotel room is a challenge, especially having to make Olive's food and do the mass amount of dishes that come with tube feeding, but thankfully our room is very nice. And they have a great hospital rate. We didn't venture into the pool today, but I'm sure we will soon.

Dain and I are exhausted. Olive is running around doing somersaults on the bed and evading Dain who is trying to get her to go to sleep. That's pretty much par for the course. Tomorrow we start our feeding program at 8:30 a.m. We've hyped it a lot and told Olive she is going to feeding school to learn how to eat with her mouth. She seems to accept that description and think it's a good idea. That may change when we get there.

(As I was about to publish this post, Olive choked on her pacifier and threw up all over our hotel room officially ending our streak of good luck the past few days. It meant another bath for Olive, new outfits, soaking clothes in the tub, and a serious scrub down of the bathroom. We will be hitting up the laundromat soon. Sigh.)