Exactly a year ago on June 9th, our entire family arrived at Arizona after an eventful road trip. For some background story as to why that move happened:
I was raised in a small town. I got wonderful education, but I lacked life skills - judging/trusting people, prioritizing self above others, how to talk in a given situation etc. This often landed me in trouble during my engineering days. My husband, my then boyfriend, tried to advise me on the same, but I just could not get it. Then I decided that I will live only in an urban environment. Luckily for me, my work took me only to cities - Hyderabad in India, LA and Minneapolis in the US. But in Oct of 2009 when I decided to quit work to be with my husband we moved to a small peaceful town, Green Bay in WI. As I discovered more about the place, I made up my mind that it was not the place where I wanted to raise my kids. I just wanted to be in a city where my children will have many choices, know their choices and choose wisely from amongst those (of course with parental guidance). Also, at the same time I wanted to pursue my MBA for that next career step. C too wanted to get out of there due to various reasons. All these put together, I looked for admissions and got selected into the Fall 2013 MBA program at WP Carey (ASU's School Of Business) at Tempe in Arizona. Again I left work to pursue further studies. Thus the move.
We decided it would be a road trip of three days with two stops. The trip turned out to be eventful.
Day 1 - June 7th, 2013: We started off on time at 6 am. I got my first speeding ticket of $250. Apparently I was driving at 79 mph in a 65 mph freeway. OMG! Now that I think of it, Wi freeways too had 65 mph as the speed limit. :(. But the day ended really well. We checked into a wonderful hotel at Omaha in Nebraska. We found wonderful food to eat - Little A got to eat some okra, his favorite vegetable.
Day 2 - June 8th, 2013: Given the fact that C and I are late risers, we were surprised at the fact that we started off really early. Just only to lose time because of another of my great deed. C walked into a store to pick up some stuff and asked me to fill the tank. And very confidently, I filled in diesel in stead of gas. Luckily for me, I noticed it even before I started my engine. The first thing i did : remove my kids form the car , walk to the store and call for AAA. After a really long wait, our car was carried on one of those trailers and we were driven 30 miles on a freeway in one of those huge trucks. The kids just loved the truck ride. We lost around 7 hrs in the repair shop. Upon arriving at Denver, Colorado we checked into a really cheap hotel (as it was already late) and were just waiting to get out of there.
Day 3 - June 9th, 2013 (Sunday): As other days, we had an early start. Caught a glimpse of the majestic mountains at Colorado and after a couple of hours notice the changing landscape - mountains to desert. And OMG! we got used to the subzero temperatures in Green Bay for the last 4 years that the desert heat was too much for us to take. We reached Chandler around 10 pm and were waiting to hit the sack.
I will never ever forget how thankful I am to my dearest little boys - 2yr old A and 4 yr old S. They were extremely well behaved during the entire trip. We took walking breaks at rest areas, read books, talked about containers/trucks/trailers, counted vehicles passing by, played various games, watched movies, listened to and sang songs and move all chatted a whole lot. In spite of controlled screen time during the trip, my boys just did not fuss. A would get cranky when it was getting hotter but he would drift off into sleep or just talk to us...
Luckily we arranged to stay at our dear friend's house and then head our way the next day. Though our first impression of Arizona was not the best, it was definitely better than Green Bay.
We enrolled the kids into swimming at a wonderful swim school, S into Kumon and above all I found a very nice spiritual center (Sai center) that we all visited every Sunday. Though Phoenix is abundant in temples, restaurants and outdoor activities; the anxiousness of how the year ahead would go by was far more than the excitement of a new place…
I was raised in a small town. I got wonderful education, but I lacked life skills - judging/trusting people, prioritizing self above others, how to talk in a given situation etc. This often landed me in trouble during my engineering days. My husband, my then boyfriend, tried to advise me on the same, but I just could not get it. Then I decided that I will live only in an urban environment. Luckily for me, my work took me only to cities - Hyderabad in India, LA and Minneapolis in the US. But in Oct of 2009 when I decided to quit work to be with my husband we moved to a small peaceful town, Green Bay in WI. As I discovered more about the place, I made up my mind that it was not the place where I wanted to raise my kids. I just wanted to be in a city where my children will have many choices, know their choices and choose wisely from amongst those (of course with parental guidance). Also, at the same time I wanted to pursue my MBA for that next career step. C too wanted to get out of there due to various reasons. All these put together, I looked for admissions and got selected into the Fall 2013 MBA program at WP Carey (ASU's School Of Business) at Tempe in Arizona. Again I left work to pursue further studies. Thus the move.
We decided it would be a road trip of three days with two stops. The trip turned out to be eventful.
Day 1 - June 7th, 2013: We started off on time at 6 am. I got my first speeding ticket of $250. Apparently I was driving at 79 mph in a 65 mph freeway. OMG! Now that I think of it, Wi freeways too had 65 mph as the speed limit. :(. But the day ended really well. We checked into a wonderful hotel at Omaha in Nebraska. We found wonderful food to eat - Little A got to eat some okra, his favorite vegetable.
Day 2 - June 8th, 2013: Given the fact that C and I are late risers, we were surprised at the fact that we started off really early. Just only to lose time because of another of my great deed. C walked into a store to pick up some stuff and asked me to fill the tank. And very confidently, I filled in diesel in stead of gas. Luckily for me, I noticed it even before I started my engine. The first thing i did : remove my kids form the car , walk to the store and call for AAA. After a really long wait, our car was carried on one of those trailers and we were driven 30 miles on a freeway in one of those huge trucks. The kids just loved the truck ride. We lost around 7 hrs in the repair shop. Upon arriving at Denver, Colorado we checked into a really cheap hotel (as it was already late) and were just waiting to get out of there.
Day 3 - June 9th, 2013 (Sunday): As other days, we had an early start. Caught a glimpse of the majestic mountains at Colorado and after a couple of hours notice the changing landscape - mountains to desert. And OMG! we got used to the subzero temperatures in Green Bay for the last 4 years that the desert heat was too much for us to take. We reached Chandler around 10 pm and were waiting to hit the sack.
I will never ever forget how thankful I am to my dearest little boys - 2yr old A and 4 yr old S. They were extremely well behaved during the entire trip. We took walking breaks at rest areas, read books, talked about containers/trucks/trailers, counted vehicles passing by, played various games, watched movies, listened to and sang songs and move all chatted a whole lot. In spite of controlled screen time during the trip, my boys just did not fuss. A would get cranky when it was getting hotter but he would drift off into sleep or just talk to us...
We enrolled the kids into swimming at a wonderful swim school, S into Kumon and above all I found a very nice spiritual center (Sai center) that we all visited every Sunday. Though Phoenix is abundant in temples, restaurants and outdoor activities; the anxiousness of how the year ahead would go by was far more than the excitement of a new place…
No comments:
Post a Comment