Victorville

Today was an awful day: I'll just say that right upfront. None of us were in good moods, though technically healthy (I think -- please let the boos not be coming down with anything). But it was going to be 97 in Ridgecrest and there's nothing to do here (have I mentioned that before?). And more importantly, I needed to buy diapers. Baby A is very prone to diaper rash, especially since he is on antibiotics all the time, and I find that Pampers "sensitive" diapers irritate him less than the regular kind, and also less than Huggies "natural" diapers. However, no store in Ridgecrest carries sensitive diapers in size 4. So every few weeks I have to drive 90 miles to Palmdale to buy sensitive diapers at Target. (Roll on potty training.)

The problem was that we went to Palmdale last week -- just didn't make it to Target -- and the thought of Palmdale 2 weekends in a row was disheartening. So I had this bright idea that we could go to Victorville instead. It's almost exactly the same distance away from us -- the only downside is that you have to take Highway 395 south, which is the most horrible segment of highway in the known world. But Rocket Boy had the equally bright idea that we could also go to the Route 66 museum in Victorville while we were there, and that would make it an enjoyable outing.

OK, so first the drive was nasty. Got stuck behind slow vehicles, etc. And it's just an ugly, ugly drive. But OK, whatever. Ninety minutes, ninety miles, we're there.



We went inside the museum; we were greeted warmly; it seemed nice. And then the man behind the counter in the gift shop said to Rocket Boy, "I hope your kids know the difference between a toy store and a museum." What a stupid museum! Who is it intended for? It's chock full of darling toy cars that are right out where everyone (namely children) can see and touch them, except you aren't supposed to.

We didn't stay very long.

Next stop was Richie's Diner, recommended by the man behind the counter, for lunch.



This was a pretty fun place to have lunch, or would have been if our kids were older and my stomach was back to normal. I studied the menu and ordered a BLT, thinking it looked small. I wanted just a little bit of food. So the sandwich arrived and it was absolutely enormous, including perhaps a pound of bacon. I chewed my way through it and then felt sick. The boos ate a grilled cheese sandwich, Rocket Boy had a chicken pot pie, and then he and the greedy boos split a piece of carrot cake.

Then it was time for Target, except that we couldn't find it, because we had gone way off course to find the diner and we didn't have a good map. So we were driving along I-15, which runs through town, and we saw a Babies R Us. They sell diapers, we reminded ourselves, so we went there. We bought an ENORMOUS box of sensitive Pampers, and then since a Toys R Us was right next door, we had a look at tricycles, which we've been meaning to buy since last March. Their green folding Kettler trikes were on sale, $39.99 each, so what the heck, we bought two. The boos insisted that we also buy 2 more balls (sigh), and Baby B also wanted a book about Elmo, who he loves despite never having seen Sesame Street, but we managed to accidentally forget to buy that.

Then Rocket Boy suggested one more stop: Barnes & Noble. He did it for me, as a sweet gesture, but oh what a mistake that was. We packed the boos into their stroller and Rocket Boy pushed them around while I went to look at the fiction. I had a Cormac McCarthy novel in my hand when I heard passionate loud wails -- and I put the book back on the shelf. I knew I wasn't going to buy anything. It turned out that Baby B wanted a gigantic calendar, maybe 3 feet long, with a picture of a cat on it. We didn't want to buy that, because he would want to play with it, not hang it on the wall, and then he would rip it apart. So we just left, with everyone in B&N staring at us. And Baby B continued to yell pretty much all the way home.

Which was 90 miles.

When we finally got home and let the boos out of the car, they cheered up briefly. We got out the tricycles and set them up on the back patio, and for a little while everyone was happy.



But then Baby A actually figured out how to pedal his, so he was screaming because it was hard, and Baby B didn't figure out how to pedal his, so he was screaming because he was jealous. And then Baby A got mixed up about which one was his (because they're identical) and tried to push Baby B off his, thinking it was his, and additional screaming ensued. And then Baby A brought his tricycle indoors and was screaming because it's hard to ride a trike on carpet, and then I made him put it outside again, so he was screaming because he wanted it to be inside. And then we had dinner (frozen meals for everyone except me; cereal for me; we're eating so marvelously well these days), and the screaming continued for whatever reason, and then it was bath night, which always involves screaming, and then we got into pajamas and read books and screamed some more, and then oh my god they went to bed.

They will be up again in 9 hours.