in st.louis...

finally i am in st.Louis =-) now i write about what I'm doing here.

we PLAY AND PLAY AND PLAY with our cousins its SO fun! i luv Kate and Clara. Kate is SO cute when some one sneezes and she says "bless you" ha ha! we went to see pirates of the Caribbean at worlds end FUNNY! we didn't hit any birds or lizards...tho... but we still had fun daddy loves to.....SLEEP! he took his computer apart to clean something but turns out after all night i didn't need to be cleaned...he he. we didn't get to go in the arch but we talked about it



end of st. louis

The Bittles go East!

The Bittles of Sacramento were invited to come play in the sandbox with the Bittles of St. Louis. We'll see after this trip whether we ever get invited back.

Now, anyone that knows me knows that I have a passion for technology. Now historically, a family trip is where the whole family gets into a car and comes together with songs such as "99 bottles of frosty non-alcoholic adult beverages on the wall, 99 bottles of frosty non-alcoholic adult beverages", and travel games such as "theres a car, theres a car, theres a .... oh, truck!" Not for me.

I have got to have the digital home entertainment system on wheels. In the beginning of the year, we purchased the Griswald family truckster, a brand new 2007 Honda Pilot. Which of course had to be fully equipped with the DVD system, XM radio, and thankfully, wireless headsets for the kids! To add to the already geeked out ride, I added a GPS receiver to a laptop, and strategically placed right behind the front seats where the kids can be trip navigators, eliminating the obnoxious "Are we there yet?" Now if that was not enough, I added an xbox system and attached it to the entertainment system. With all of this to entertain the kids, along with their Nintendo DS's and Ipods, I better not hear, "I'm bored, there is nothing to do..." You think I overdid it? ... Nah!....

We loaded up on Thursday for an early Friday departure. We got on the road at about 6:30am, knowing that our first day of driving was going to be the long one. I began driving first, driving through Reno and across Nevada. Tracy and I switched driving every couple of hours, which worked out very well. It worked out until a Nevada State Trooper caught Mrs. Leadfoot driving 86 in a 55 zone. Even mentioning that I was a peace officer was not getting her out of that one. Believe me, I tried. After Tracy "let" me drive after the ticket, the kids got a kick out of the poor bird that took a wrong turn at Albuquerque and ended up right in line with the family truckster at 80mph. Lets just say that the bird did not make it out too well. We cruised across Nevada and the majority of Utah, getting into Moab, UT late on Friday night.

Knowing that we had less driving to do on Saturday, we took some time in the morning to check out Arches National Park. If you havent had the experience of seeing the amazing features of Eastern Utah, check it out when you can. The colors and unbeliveable landscapes are something to see! We took a couple of hours tooling around the park, playing tourist and checking out the sights.

We left the park with plenty of time to get to our next destination, Goodland KS. We left Utah and got into Colorado. We were making pretty good time. We figured we might get into Goodland early at the rate we were going, but appartently we did not make our offering to the travel gods before we left. About 100 miles west of Denver, we ran into bumper to bumper traffic. After a two hour delay, we finally passed the big rig in the median who thought he was special and tried to drive on its side. Lets just say that it didnt work out too well for him. We got back up to crusing speed and got into Goodland late.

We got up early on Sunday to get on the road for our final leg of the drive to St. Louis. We had to trek across Kansas, then across the majority of Missouri to get into there. It was during this drive that I proved a mathematical impossiblity. I proved that 90 is less than 86. Apparently the Kansas State Trooper that was cruising westbound did not like the fact that his radar showed me going 90mph. I don't know what he was talking about, because I had the cruise control set at 92! I made sure to mention that I "forgot" that I was not in my squad car. After checking my department ID, he gave me a stern warning about driving 90mph. I "promised" I would never do it again! The loopy group of us finally got into St. Louis, extremely happy to get our tired butts out of the car. We spent the rest of the evening celebrating Father's Day with some much anticipated adult beverages, great food, and even better company.

I would like to thank Uncle Moneybags who offered the boys 100 gold of online gaming money for being good on the trip. Anytime either of them acted up, all we had to say was "100 gold!" and they stopped in their tracks. Joel, you rock!

Stay tuned for the continuing drama of the Bittles on tour!

The first road trip, going to St. Louis

- My first day on the road-

My first day of driving passed by quickly. I had to get up at 6:00 to leave early enough. We were in the car for about 13 hours until we got to Moab,Utah, where we slept the night. We passed the time with our 3 nintendo Ds's, 1 Xbox, boxes of books on CD, a bagful of books, 3 laptops (in which one of them was used for our navigation system), and 2 ipods. I spent most of the time listening to the books on CD, or listening to my ipod, or playing on the xbox. In the middle of the time, my dad was driving and we hit a bird on the highway! It was funny! When we got to Moab, we went to a Denny's for dinner and then we went to the hotel pool to swim for a while. After we did that, it was time for bed.

-Day 2 on the road-

When we woke up, we drove just a little bit down the road to the opening of Arches National Park. It was soo beautiful! First, we passed a long canyon and started pointing out shapes or tiny arches in the rocks. Then was the real deal. We stopped at a place where there were arches, some of them even double. When we were looking at the arches, Adam started walking and he saw a lizard in the pavement. We watched the lizard until we left. Then, we drove to Delicate Arch. On the trail, we saw a little bunny in which Kyle made a song about when we got into the car. Then, we saw a bright, yellow and teal chameleon posing on a rock for us. Then, we went to Sand Dune Arch. There, it was exactly how it seemed, a small canyon filled with sand in which we could play in. I followed some animal tracks until we had to leave. Then, we went onto the road. I did almost exactly what I had done the day before. This time, we didn't hit anything, but we almost hit a lizard twice. We also had fun watching our mom and dad. In the morning, mamma was driving when we entered a tunnel. My dad was trying to make my mom to honk in the tunnel. She finally gave in. Later that day, we were stuck in traffic when we entered a tunnel. Other people started honking tunes and it turned out to be very funny. It so happened that my dad was driving, so he started making more tunes in which other people continued. It was very amusing. Today, we started in Utah, went through Colorado and just barely crossed the Kansas border when we stopped for for the night.

-Day 3 on the road, the last one before we got to St. Louis-

Today, we woke up at 7:00Am, Goodland, Kansas time (which was 6:00 Sacramento time).
We hopped into the car for the last day of driving to St. Louis. Today felt like the longest. We couldn't wait until we got to St. Louis. We were so excited. I mostly played Nintendo DS and watched my brothers play xbox until we got there. Once we got passed the 100 mile mark to St. Louis, we just had to stand and watch until we got there. Then, we finally got to where we wanted to. We met our cousins and payed with them for a while. We had some dinner, we caught some fireflies, and then we played on Uncle Joel's Wii. Now, it is bedtime.

Arches national park

At Arches national park when we drove in all I could say was wow! The rock formations were the best things of all Other than the reptiles we saw. On the way into the park in one of the rocks if you look carefully you can see a train. As I was walking along the parking block as I look down and there was a lizard and I called him lazy. At the end of the trip to arches we went to the sand dunes to have a little fun. I climbed up on the highest rock and said I was the king of the rocks. My favorite part of the trip to the arches was the delicate arch. Just as we were going out of the park me and Alex saw the train again.

On my first trip to St. Louis…

The first day-

We drove forever. We drove thru Nevada and Utah. First mamma got a ticket 4 speeding. Weeeeee! Then she almost hit a lizard but didn’t. Now daddy started to drive. Now this is a funny part. We were driving then a bird swooped in front of us. BANG!!!! It hit the window. We laughed our heads off! But other than that it was boring. Then we finally got to the hotel.
End of day one.

Day two-

We left the hotel then went to arches national park. It was soooooooo fun. We saw stuff that was so cool. The best part of that were the sand dunes. The sand was so warm in some places and cold in the shady places. We saw a chameleon and a bunny that we called foo foo. And I made a song a bout him. Then a truck rolled over on the road and we got stuck in traffic, in a thunder storm, well Adam was complaining that he had to go to the bathroom and he won’t go on the road. But the lightning was cool! Now the sun is setting and it’s beautiful.
End of day two.

Day One of Trip to St. Louis

Road trip you say? There is nothing quite like traveling with a Bittle Man. I am convinced there are nomadic traits inherent in their genes. First, the route MUST be planned in advance. I do believe that my generation of Bittle men has evolved quite nicely into the computer era of Bittle Travelers. Chris’ parents have stories of cross country trips which involved getting there as fast as possible. Eliminating any unnecessary stops, food? Bathroom breaks a thing of the past with those folks. I think they had a spoken or perhaps unspoken competition to beat the time of the previous trip. My Bittle Man however organized and well planned he is, allows for eating and potty breaks, Thanks Chris. Road trip blogs are new with this generation. Journals of past Bittle trips have been long a part of the trip, now it is posted onto the web for everyone to enjoy. We will be posting pictures and if possible a little diddy the kids were singing.

Our morning began with an attempted start time of 6am. We were close, we were leaving Starbucks drive through at 6:43, yes AM. Chris can function in the mornings for a good cause. We had our well packed Honda Pilot loaded up with suitcases, a cooler, 3 laptops (no I’m not kidding), DVDs, books on cd, 3 Nintendo Ds, books, 3 ipods, and various other sources of entertainment for the kids and us too. Do you see a theme here? Three. I never knew that the number of children you have will dictate your life so much.

We planned on approximately 800 miles of driving today. Our goal was to reach Moab, Utah to stay in our preplanned hotel for the night. Entertaining three kids for this long of a drive was definitely a major consideration in our planning. For some reason Nevada seems to be a bad state for our family to drive through. I received a speeding ticket for traveling 86mph in a 55mph zone. In my sort of lame defense I honestly thought it was still a 70mph zone. Which the officer kindly pointed out I would still be 16 miles above that rate. OOPS. I’m proof that having a police officer for a spouse does NOT relieve me of getting tickets. It’s happened 2x in the last two years, both on road trips. Anyhow the officer was kind enough to give me a ticket for 65 in a 55 mile zone. At least it was a “basic” speeding ticket and not one for reckless speed. I “let’ Chris drive after the ticket.

We did great passing off driving back and forth as each of us tired. The kids did moderately well. We arrived safely in time to eat dinner, allow the kids a brief swim and were asleep by 10pm. I’ll let Chris pipe in with his own version of events; I left some out for him to cover.