Our trip on I-80 (the I is for insanity)

Last week we took a trip to California for Mark's family reunion (camping in a park of huge redwood trees), and for some adventures in the Bay Area and at the beach. And to test the limits of our sanity and creativity in a squishy car. This picture kind of sums up the driving portion of our week.
A torturing two year old, a picked-on six month old, and a bored and cranky four year old. This is why a 10 hour drive home (curse you Mapquest, for getting our hopes up) turned into a 16 hour adventure...make that two 16 hour adventures.

Mark and I had to play rock-paper-scissors to see who won the chance to be the driver. The loser got to break up fights, dole out fruit snacks, switch DVDs, devise creative responses to the "Are we almost there?" question, and see a lot of this sight:
It's Lily cranking her neck around (pretty good for a torticollis baby) to cast desperate looks at her parents. I think an accurate subtitle for this picture would be "Please get me out before someone...
puts another peanut in my mouth/wakes me up with the "California, Here I Come" song again/puts their bare foot on my cheek/tries to pinch their sister across me", etc.

And even though she caused a huge ruckus in the backseat, Eliza kept us laughing with her observations:

When we were passing through Reno, she announced "I just saw Indiana."
When we were passing through the mountains she announced "I just saw the ocean and the fish."

When we gave her a drink she said, "I'll not remember to spill. Spill is when you do this..."

When it was her turn to choose a movie to watch, she would always ask to listen to "Jacob and Sons" from "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat." (She has a cousin named Jacob and I'm pretty sure she thinks the song is about him, no matter how many times we have told the story of Joseph of Egypt.) Once she asked if Danielle (Jacob's mom) was the one singing that song.

When we set a "no talking" rule around bedtime (or rather, around the time we wished they would go to sleep, which was about 3 hours earlier than the time they actually fell asleep), Eliza said, "Lily can't talk really much." Good thing we've got that cleared up.

To our amusement, Sage kept a running total of the number of people she saw "blowing cigarettes" on our California trip.

In addition to the backseat commentary, we also got a kick out of a few places we passed (and passed up): Chubby's Diner, 9 Beans and a Burrito, and Terrible's Gas.

There was a little bit of trauma with our little people when (half) a butterfly got stuck in one of the windshield wiper blades.

And, the insanity of I-80 culminated in our arrival in San Francisco. What in the WORLD is wrong with drivers there? If I hadn't been gripping the car door the whole time Mark navigated us through that crazy city, I would have been furiously composing my last will and testament on a McDonalds napkin.

Miraculously, we arrived at our hotel safely. After checking out the ice maker, little fridge, and the bounciness of the beds (must-do's for kids in hotels), our little ones finally slept. While visions of cable cars danced in their heads.

More forthcoming on the non-insane part of our trip.