Our Two Bus, One Train, an Airplane, a Zebra and a Lights Kinda Day… (or.. Plane, Train, and Automobiles)

I wish I were a stay at home mom. I know I get experiences in my career that I wouldn’t get anywhere else and get fulfillment and a paycheck and all that stuff. But every so often, I get to create with my son the kind of days that I wish filled all of our weeks.

We got up late (thank goodness for that! My son is 4 and he is FINALLY!!! starting to learn the art of sleeping in!!) and goofed off at home. We got dressed and took Z’s jeep out for a ride.

We were about a third of the way around the neighborhood when I suddenly realized that I didn’t have to exert myself nearly as much as I did the first time he rode it. The jeep goes 5 mph (about a 12 minute mile.) For a few minutes, I entertained myself with the idea that between the walking I did yesterday and the walk this morning, I was really starting to build up my stamina fast!!

Ok who’m I kidding? I knew the battery starting to lose some life. I had a sudden flash in my mind of pushing the jeep half way around the neighborhood (which is about a mile around the full circle) While I think Zach would still enjoy it, I thought I might not. So I convinced him to turn back around and head home. After performing an 8 point turn, and running over my foot a time or two, we made it back home.

We headed for the Sycamore/Apache bus station for the Valley Metro Light Rail Opening Ceremony. We got there about an hour after the opening and the place was packed. They had little opening ceremonies at stations all along the line. We were just going to hop on the new light rail there, ride it for a bit and then head home. So we got there and there was a bit of a line to get on the rails so I followed it around and around and back and off to the left and back some more until I found the back of it. Where they had an official guy there hollaring at all of us that the line was estimated to be a three hour wait from that point. I looked at Zach and traced my tracks back. In addition to the light rails, they had free buses going up and down the rail lines. So we got in line for one of those. We used to ride the buses in Tucson for fun on slow days so it was old hat for us.

While waiting in line there was a single father there hitting on me (I'm guessing he was a single father... I never did get to do the ring check and I so much prefer that thought to a married guy hitting on me.) He was taking his two boys out for an adventure too. We were in line waiting to get on the bus, kinda talking to this guy. Just then an empty bus pulled in and Zach deftly pushed his way in and saved us two seats in the back (see... old hat) and by the time I get settled into my seat with the stroller, single guy is out of sight. Which is ok because then I can tuck him away in my mind with a nothing more than a smirk.

Anyway, I digress.

We rode the bus for a few miles and got off at random at one stop. Here they had a few fire trucks and other fun things. Zach got his face painted:

And since he got to pick how it was painted... it should come as no suprise to those that know him... he picked Spiderman:

They also took a picture of Zach and let him decorate a foam picture frame with stickers and we got a balloon animal there from a girl clown with the coolest red bobbed cut wig. (Man I really want to have colored hair. Really wish I could've gotten that blue figured out. Sigh.)

At that point, we decided to take a break and see if we could get on the rail at that stop, heading back to our car. Ok so remember how before I told you that the wait to get on the train was 3 hours??? (which is how long it takes me to get from my house to my family in Lakeside!?!?!) Well at this stop, just a few miles down the road, I waited 10 minutes. And the only reason why I waited that long was because when we got there, the train hadn't arrived yet. We got on the first train that came by.

It was kinda cool. They move pretty fast (even though they still have to stop at red lights and stuff.) I spent 10 years in Tucson voting down every transportation initiative to build something like that there (course I gotta say those initiatives were always for a three mile rail... which I still think would fail to deliver all the booming economic growth that was promised... it's three miles for crying out loud. You could walk it in less than an hour...) But since I don't live in Tucson and I didn't get a chance to even have any kind of say in this rail, all I can do at this point is take advantage of the free ride days.

Zach liked the train but was honestly more worried about his spiderman "tattoo" (as he liked to call it... ok can you tell I let him have tattoos a little more than I probably should!!)

We stopped at one more stop before we got to where our car was parked. This stop had a jumping castle:

You can really only see the tippity top of Z's head in this pic but I thought I did such a good job of catching the essence of the jump in the other kid that this would be the one I would show!!

There, we got a free tulip (which Z decided he wanted to give to Tia R - by the way Tia R... if you're reading this... he left it somewhere at your house... hopefully in an obvious place! :D) and he made a flower out of tissue paper (he gave that one to me!!) Then someone at one of the little booths spent about 20 minutes helping him color a picture while we all listened to Mariachi music. It was really quite entertaining!! But the fun had to end and we both decided we were done.

So we headed out and, in a move totally out of character for me, I let Z push the stroller. (I gotta admit, he is getting better - maybe it's all that driving practice he's getting in with the jeep... nah - he barely drives in a semblance of a straight line in the jeep :P)

But he enjoyed it anyway. At this point, we got to chase a bus (which didn't stop for us) and then wait a bit and finally got onto a double bus - the thing was huge!! It was actually my first time being on one of those. They don't have those mammoths in Tucson. But the crazy thing was there were only five people on it. What a waste. We took it back the mile or so to our car and headed back home.

I admit at that point, I really could've gone for a nap. But Z was really excited and begged me to go to Tia R's house. He really wanted to show off his "tattoo." We missed seeing Tia R but Tio T was there and he was about to head out to fly his new remote control airplane. So we met him at the park by our house. Which of course meant that Z wanted to drive his jeep to the park. Which was stupid of me to let him do it because if you remember from above, it wasn't anywhere close to being fully charged. So I ended up pushing him half the way there (thanks Tio T for carting it back to the house for us later!!)

Anyway, Z had a blast and Tio T even let Z try his had at the controls a few times. It was really fun.

Well the plane did about as good as Z's jeep. It needed some more battery and charger time. So while it was short lived, it was still fun and I was really glad that it worked out for us to do it because Z has been walking around since Christmas saying that Tio T said he was going to let Z try to fly it. I appreciate that he got in some male bonding time!

At that point, we got dropped off with the jeep at home and got the thing plugged in to get ready for a different day. We watched a movie from Uncle B's collection (which he left here at my house from last weekend - although I think he may have taken my remote control as advance ransom because I have not seen that thing since he left... hmm) It was nice to take a chill pill and relax. Then we made one more attempt to share the joy of the tat with the family. Z did get to show it G'ma and G'pa so that was good at least. But then we decided to go out to eat. I didn't want to do McD's or anything like that so we started heading towards Phoenix with the intent of finding something new and exciting on the way.


So that's kind of an interesting conundrum I haven't gotten used to yet living here. It is pretty much impossible to find something "on the way" when you take the freeway. Sheesh. But we were headed to the Zoo lights and at some point on the freeways (which are so wonderful!!) I just accepted the inevitable and agreed with myself to pick something up at the zoo.

The zoo was fun. We got food first, although Z would've settled for either a ride on the "endagered animal" (no seriously - it's actually called that) carousel or a flashing strobe light sword/bracelet/necklace.... We got pizza and a cheeseburger (I'm trying to increase both my iron levels and how much protein I'm getting on a regular basis - I got the cheeseburger)


Ok two bites into the pizza (and I so predicted this... I just didn't act on it earlier) Z had to go REAAAALLLLLYY bad. So we packed up the food onto the stroller (sooooooo glad I brought it!!) and headed to the banos. Of course there was a line as long as the one at the train station for the women's and nothing at the guys. So in a moment that was a little sad, a little scary, and a little desperate... I sent Z into the men's room alone. And when he came out with wet sleeves, I was so proud!! And I got like a totally evil/jealous glare from a lady standing in the women's line that pretty much looked like she hadn't moved in the time Z went in and out.


After that incident, we just kinda strolled around. Well, I strolled, Z sat in the stroller. It was great. They had this one section where they had lights on the trees pretty close together and they timed them to music and it was a lot of fun. Of course taking pictures of lights is never very productive so here's one to give you an idea (of either the cool lights or my bad photography... both are acurate)





After a few more terrible shots, my camera couldn't take it anymore and simply passed out. It's home now being charged like everything else electronic in my life.


We stayed a bit longer (with a small detour at the elephant pit that smelled bad and provided no visiual gratification) and then decided to call it a night. It was really cool! We made it back to the car and Z asked where we were headed next. I told him it was off to bed and he assured me he wasn't tired at all. So I agreed that we could watch another movie from Uncle B's stash when we got home. We spent most of the drive telling stories about how we were going to hide that movie stash and only give it back if a certain uncle started crying (take note Uncle B!) We were about a mile from home (on our about twenty mile trip) when Z just totally zonked. I even trying hollaring his name and got nothing. So here I sit, watching a movie from the stash alone, with a zombied out, wonderful, cute, open-mouthed angel sitting next to me.



And I was thinking. You know, life usually doesn't turn out the way it's "supposed" to or anything like that. But this, this life I have is pretty wonderful.