I know I have made you wait for this post for quite sometime now. But my excuse this time is that Snugli keeps me busy most of the time - she walks now (hence has completely stopped crawling) and is like a miniature hurricane around the house. And whenever I want to sit in front of the comp, somehow she lands right there wanting to press the keys on the keyboard or pull the mouse to its limits. Well you can see how that discourages me from sitting on the comp for a long time :-p. Anyways back to the topic on hand, which is the final part of the trilogy (for now, until we go on one of our trips again :-D), the trip to Jacksonville Florida during New year.
Let me tell you one thing, going to a warm place when you have been cold for days is literally like a sweet dream and you don't really want to leave, but you know that reality is waiting for you right around the corner with its arms wide open :-p. But well, why start with a disappointing note when we have a whole trip to cover? We hadn't really decided whether to go on the trip until the last minute, so the only option was to drive..
It was a long drive to say the least, 11 hours is what Google maps says, but we took almost 1.5 days I think. I mean we left on Monday afternoon, drove till the night with several breaks and stayed the night somewhere in South Carolina. On Tuesday drove almost till the evening - we took several breaks + the traffic was horrendous Georgia onwards (holiday traffic - looks like everyone in US and Canada was heading to Florida :-p). More than 14 hours in all. Yes, we took turns driving and yes it'd have been shorter if we didn't have Snugli with us. But we had to have milk, snacks, lunch, dinner and diaper breaks for her. Thankfully, she wasn't at all fussy while driving, she enjoyed the sights, took several naps, played with her toys (I had taken a set of them) and was only cranky now and then. We made it a point to stop whenever she was cranky and give her as well as us a rest.
So, travelling with Snugli was not really that big a deal this time. Yes, we planned very well. One major advantage was that I completely weaned her from breastfeeding around a week after her 1st birthday (I started cutting down and adding cow's milk around her 11th month and didn't have any problems at all, thank God :-D). So we didn't have that hassle at all. Secondly, since she has 2 meals of rice daily and thats not very easily available outside here, we booked a hotel with a small kitchenette. Also since we were going in a car, we were able to carry most of the items with us. It took almost one day to pack everything (we took everything from rice, ghee, turmeric to pressure cooker and some utensils :-D). Plus I cooked and packed enough for Snugli till we'd reach the hotel. So in general, we carried her cereal for breakfast, groceries to cook her lunch and dinner, milk (with complan which I made and put in ice for the travel), her snacks and some fruits. Once we reached the hotel, we bought milk and curd (yogurt) for the stay there. Mind you, all this was for Snugli. I didn't take/cook anything for us, we almost always had lunch/dinner out.
The one mistake I made was while packing for the travel, I put the tarkaari anna that I make for Snugli in mixie and mashed it up into a mushy paste ('cause was a bit too lazy to mash it all up by hand which is what I regularly do) and our guess is that she didn't like it much, so she vomited a bit of her dinner the first night (we were not really sure it was due to that, may have been due to the travel + curvy roads, but the same thing had happened in Smokies travel too). On the travel back, I did mash everything by hand and she didn't have any problems, so I guess thats a lesson learnt :).
As I said, we reached the hotel in Jacksonville on 30th evening. That night after dinner, we did visit a beach. It was pretty cool, but it was wayy pleasant than Lexington obviously. But Snugli was asleep and we were there just for a while. The next morning we lazed away (well not really what with making breakfast and lunch for Snugli and washing the dishes, it sorta felt like we were living there :-D). We did manage to take a walk around the hotel, the weather was fabulous and there was a fountain with ducks which Snugli rather enjoyed. Then we left and went to the Jax beach..
This was Snugli's first view of a beach..
And one of the first things we did was to chase seagulls :).
We made her walk around (she still wasn't confident walking on her own then) and watched the waves with her..
And took all these photos ofcourse..
Later we sat on some sea-shells and Snugli really enjoyed banging the shells together..
All in all we spent a pleasant afternoon on the beach. That night were the fireworks, so after dinner we got decked up in layers of clothes as it was going to be pretty chilly and left to see the fireworks over the St.Johns river in Jacksonville downtown. There were lots of people and we had to wait till midnight (obviously since they were New year fireworks :-p), but we found a comfortable seat and sat down. But it was already past Snugli's bed time, so she fell totally asleep and wasn't even awake for the actual show! And to think they were supposed to be her first fireworks :-D. Well, I did record a video for her sake but somehow am able to embed only a image here..
Next day, again, didn't do much in the morning and lazed around till lunch (we had lunch at this amazing Indian restaurant called Red chillies, had to mention that because it was really good and worth visiting if you are out there). Then went to an outlet mall and spent that day window shopping (I did end up buying a couple of things :-D). The mall did have these small kid rides..
That was it for the day.
The next day in the morning we took a walk again and here are the surroundings of the hotel we stayed in..
Then we went to the beach again and took a walk on the fishing pier there..
Snugli had a good time walking on the pier, later climbing onto her dad's shoulders for sometime and watching pelicans and other birds there :). Still later we stopped at the beach again..
And that was it. It was difficult to say goodbye to the gorgeous weather, but we had to get back..
We did drive back on the different route (through Atlanta) and our misery got worse as it was really cold and misty in Tennessee :-D. Anyways we got back the next day and it was a good trip. I really liked the fact that Snugli got home food throughout, but I do wonder what we'll do if we plan to fly somewhere :-D. Well, I guess thats going to be a different story altogether..
And so the travel trilogy comes to its end, but surely there'll be much more to come in the future. How the difficulty varies, well, you as well as we have to wait to find out :-D.
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