Well, I didn’t end up going to Tucson. Was it because I knew I had to take a stand no matter what the cost? Ummm, no. It’s because it was 107 the day I was deciding whether to go and that is just too damn hot for my West LA blood.
I realized this by spending 2 days in Palm Springs. It was beautiful weather just around 102, but we spent most of our time in the pool. When my two boys and I took a little walk I was confronted with just how hot the desert can be. As I’ve mentioned before, we drive everywhere when we travel and it’s a long drive to Tucson with the sun beating down on us.
Not only was it hot in Palm Springs, but I was there with my 4 and 6-year old boys with no dad to help out. They are a handful and a 3 hour drive to get there was long enough. The drive to Tucson is much longer and there’s not much to see. Listening to them say over and over, “Are we there yet?” and “Why is it so hot?” and “We would be there if we were on a plane” for 8 to 10 hours sounded like torture.
Instead, I had my mom fly out and see us. This was perfect because she could get out of the heat and we could see her.
I was hoping to write about a different adventure with my boys every week of the summer, but Palm Springs wasn’t so much as an adventure as test of my patience. I never appreciate how much the husband does until he’s not there. Everything we did in those two days took twice as long with 10,000 times more tantrums and whining.
When they were smaller, I tried to have a different adventure each week. We would go on hikes, play at the beach, take road trips, visit family. But since they started school and I started my business, there hasn’t been much adventure with just the 3 of us.
Last week we finally had our first LA Adventure and it was a lot of fun. We took my mom along to visit the LA Central Library downtown. This might not sound fun, but we’re geeks and we love the library.
I went on and on to my kids about how there are 250,000 children’s books, dvds, cds and audiobooks in the children’s section and a beautiful, historic building to tour.
That was lost on my boys. I was talking to them about how amazing the building was and the 6-year-old said, “Cool, mom. I think I see Starbucks.” They wanted Magic Treehouse books and no mural on the ceiling was going to stop them. (In contrast, my dream is to go there without the kids, take a library tour, and have lunch at Café Pinot, a delightful downtown lunch spot in the plaza outside.)
We checked out 8 books between the two of them and the boys joined the “Knight Time Reading” Club. I initial a sheet every time they read for at least 25 minutes (or are read to in the case of the 4-year-old). When they’ve read to 1,000 minutes they win a book.
Later that day, we went to Azusa and met up with my grandmother, aunt and a couple of my cousins to have lunch at Carmen’s. It’s not Café Pinot, but the red chile sauce and beans were so good.
On Friday, we dragged my mom to the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach for lots of shark petting and fish gazing, then on Saturday she went home. It was nice to see my Mom and have her spend time with us. I feel conflicted about not going to Tucson, but we had a nice week nonetheless.
Here is my Whrrl story from the Aquarium.