our amazing trip: day 6

We spent the night last night in Joliet, Illinois.

We made the executive decision to stop at 10:00 PM, even though the children were all asleep and we were feeling good and could have driven for another two hours (we're still on Pacific Standard Time), because when we called the Marriott Hotel customer service line and asked if there were any hotels in the Kalamazoo area ... we were told that there were no Marriott hotels for at least 50 miles around St. Joseph, Michigan. The closest hotel, according to the folks on the "help" line were at least four hours north.

After having stayed in Marriott hotels almost the whole way cross-country, we are now partial to the chain. Not just because we get Marriott Reward Points, but because we find the accomodations a lot more pleasing than any of the other chains. Specifically, after Charlie thought he smelled vomit in the sink at a Holiday Inn Express in Green River, Utah and told me about the vision he had of some drunken wanderer barfing in the very sink where our children were now brushing their tiny little teeth. At that moment, my husband decided he didn't want to stay in any other hotels the rest of the trip.

Because surely no drunken wanderer has ever barfed in a Marriott sink.

Besides, the Marriott facilities have really nice pools and when Tina at The Cornhusker Marriot in downtown Lincoln kept the pool opened for 30 minutes after closing time on Tuesday night, just so our kids could go swimming, I swore them my loyalty forever.

We turned around ... headed back the way we had just come on I-80 for 20 miles, north on I-55 for another five miles, and settled in to our hotel. Only to find out today, when we were driving on I-80 through Gary, Indiana that "OH! There's a Marriott Hotel ... actually three of them ... a Courtyard, a Residence Inn and a Faifield." And then when we drove to Kalamazoo we saw more. We counted at least five of them in a span of two hours. So, not only did we lose almost two hours from backtracking and catching up to where we were last night, we could have driven at least another two hours ahead.

That was a little frustrating and will warrant a letter from me to them regarding their quality of "help" offered via their customer service line.

Today, five of six are sick with a cold and I'm fighting it tooth and nail. I've been doing my Sinus Rinse religiously twice a day, and have gone through an entire container of Zicam. Carolyn is complaining that her ears hurt. Two of the kids are on a poop strike and I think that I am going to DIE before I see the end of diapers with the triplets.

Tomorrow, we'll be looking for a pediatrician. And some Miralax.

The good news is we saw more beautiful scenery (and corn) today as we drove through Illinois...

Indiana ...

And Michigan.

The even better news is we crossed in to Canada - where there is even MORE corn.

I don't know what it is about border crossings that make me so anxious (maybe my husband who is a nervous Nellie and convinced we'll get stuck indefinitely or thrown in jail) but as we were preparing to drive up to the Canadian Border, we remembered that we had fruit in the car. From our experience in California, you are not allowed to drive in to the state with fresh fruit.

So, we quickly ate all the fruit that I had just bought at a truck stop outside of Detroit, because it seemed like days since we'd had anything fresh. We were telling the kids "Quick, here, eat this banana!! Eat this apple!! Eat this orange!!"

As we approached the Border Agent, Charlie - from the passenger seat - is whispering "Be calm. Just be calm. If you make any fast moves, they are going to suspect something." I roll down my window and answer all the questions asked as simply as possible. "We are from California. There are six of us. We are visiting family in London. We will be in town for three days."

When the Border Agent asked if we had any weapons, I responded no. But when she queried "Guns? Mace? Pepper Spray?" I hedged.

I cannot tell a lie to a Border Agent. Sure, I could, but I wouldn't want to. What if we got caught? All of my husband's fears about being thrown in to a foreign jail might come to fruition. So, I told her "Actually, I do have pepper spray."

She winced and said "Pepper spray is a weapon and it is illegal in Canada." She then asked why I had it with me, and I told her it was because we were ambushed by pit bulls a few months ago, and I carry it for self defense.

From the passenger seat I heard Charlie give a deep sigh.

Charlie and I had briefly discussed taking the pepper spray with us as we were pulling out of our driveway on this trip and both decided that it would be a good idea because we were driving ALL THE WAY ACROSS THE COUNTY and it seemed like if we ever got stranded somewhere, it might be useful to have, just in case. You never know. There might be vandals. Or highway bandits.

Turns out, pepper spray is illegal in Canada.

But fresh fruit isn't.

What we should have done is discharged our canister of pepper spray and not worried about scarfing down five bananas, two apples and an orange in less than five minutes.


We had to turn around, drive back to the United States ... talk to a U.S. Border Agent that clearly THRIVES on making people as nervous as possible ... find a spot far away from the border to dispose of the pepper spray, and then turn around and drive back across.

All the while Charlie was telling me that I shouldn't have said anything. Which I find hard to believe that he wouldn't have done the exact same, considering he has such a clean conscience he tried to pay a cashier for lemonade that we had accidentally discharged from a soda machine earlier in the day, that we had not purchased.

He would worry about lemonade - but not the repurcussions associated for himself and his family for trying to smuggle a weapon across an International border?

Yeah. I don't think so.

Almost two hours later, during our second attempt at crossing, when the Canadian Border Agent sent us in to Customs because Charlie didn't have his passport (which he couldn't find at home) or any type of documentation showing that he was a U.S. citizen (other than his driver's license), I thought for sure we were doomed.

I'm glad they didn't ask where Charlie was born, because if he had told them Canada, he might have been stuck at the border - and I'd feel bad leaving my husband behind to continue on this magnificent adventure without him.

Not only would the children miss their father, I'm not very good with the metric system.