The Jeep: The GRAND Adventure Continues...

Haleigh is home, and we had a great weekend--lots of time off for a very tired Camp Director. Challenging morning, getting the house ready to show before heading out with all three kids on our Grand Adventure, to begin Week #4 of CAMP MOMMY--

We took The Jeep north, outside the city, to the auto repair shop that got us through emissions in 2002 (with a new carberator). The Jeep never drove better, bouncing along with the windows open (well, 3 out of 4--one isn't working). (The AC, of course, does not work.) Avoiding cops--

We delivered our girl, and walked next door for lunch at Steak n' Shake, burgers and shakes, at the counter. The kids love sitting up on those stools and watching the cook make everybody's lunch. It was a lot of fun, and we're learning: things always get better after lunch, when we get the blood sugar levels stabilized...it can get kind of hectic during the summer's Witching Hour, between 10AM and Noon, when Mommy is trying to get things done to take the afternoon off to play, and the kids are running around crazy, acting up like hooligans. (It's probably the sugar cereal they self-service for breakfast.)

Anyway, after lunch, The GRAND Adventure began...
(The Grand Adventure being getting home, now that we had stranded ourselves about 10 miles away.)

1. We walked to the nearest MARTA Bus Stop (having researched and mapped our journey on the Internet last night). (MARTA is the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority--public bus and rapid rail (commuter train) transportation.) (Remember our Public Transportation kick lately!)
   
2. We rode the bus to the MARTA train station, with all the colorful, interesting people--and a seeing-eye dog, too! The kids had a great time, and were really good on the bus, which was crowded.
   
3. We rode the train to a central station for transfer. The train was almost empty, and Zach wanted to ride in the very last car. I was a little nervous, because there was a strange guy that sat right in the seat behind us--in an empty train!--and stared at us the whole time. Not so good, but the kids were again GREAT, and really enjoying the adventure.
   
4. We transferred to our second train (lost the strange guy, and stayed more with the crowd) and rode to one of the Buckhead stations to catch the BUC.
   
5. We rode the BUC the entire route to the mall. By this time, Tiger was beginning to get a little antsy and tired. (Me too.) But he made friends on the BUC with one of the hip-hop guys (16 or 17 years old), who was very cool when this little kid started staring at him and imitating him: putting his sunglasses back on, but kind of slid down on his nose; cocking his ball cap (Tiger's was Sponge Bob, the guy's was Chicago Bulls) off to an angle; leaning back and putting his arms across the back of the seats; doing his (Tiger) best to look as "kewl" as the Big Kid...it was hysterical, and impossibly cute.
   
6. We walked home from the mall, which is about a mile. We were all OVER each other at that point! I walked behind with Tiger ("all Tiger-ed out") the last several blocks, watching Zach and Haleigh fight, push each other, and cut each other off to be first on the sidewalk...not so hysterical, or cute at all. Obviously time to stabilize those blood sugar levels again, and rest a bit, in our separate corners, until Zach's basketball practice at 5:30pm. His friend came home with us from basketball for a sleepover--another late night for everyone!

All in all, it was a terrific day, a fun adventure together. Zach is, again, ready to hop on the nearest public transportation and do it all over again. I think I'm done for a while, and hopefully look forward to bombing around in The Jeep, all legal & stuff, very soon--

Total Day 16 = $30
($25 lunch at Steak n' Shake; $5 MARTA fare (children 5 & under ride FREE!), which got us through all the transfers between buses and trains and got us all the way home.)

The Jeep Shall Rise Again...

...or maybe not...

The Jeep: HERstory

1. August 2002 - In a less-than-sane moment, bought The Jeep, a "classic" 1988 Grand Wagoneer, on eBay. (Story chronicled on The Rebel Housewife: eBay Frenzy and The eBay/Jeep Adventure, Part Two.)
   
2. Thru October 2002 - Struggled and fought (with The Jeep) through repairs, major renovation, Georgia emissions testing, and registration.
   
3. November 2002 - The Last Ride. I still have to write that article someday, but suffice it to say, The Jeep left us on the side of the road one too many times. I gave up and parked HER on our back driveway. (Temperamental BITCH [sorry!]--it takes one to know one.)
   
4. December 2002 - We bought a brand-new, always-reliable Chevy Tahoe, 0% financing. We drove to Key West, Florida, in safety and comfort, for Christmas with the in-laws.
   
5. December 25, 2002 - I gave The Jeep to my husband for Christmas. He was less than enthusiastic about this gift.
   
6. May 2005 - The Jeep sat on our back driveway for 2 1/2 years. We were "intending to sell" it for all that time, we just never got around to it. As we were preparing to sell the house and move, we knew we had to do something about The Jeep.
   
7. June 2005 - My husband put a new battery in HIS Jeep, and ran around for an hour, with the kids in the car, testing it. They all came back with the surprising decision: "We want to keep The Jeep!" (It really is a fun car to drive--when SHE decides to work.)
   
8. June 8, 2005 - The Jeep is running great, although the tag is expired (Oct. 2003). We drive it to the closest Emissions Testing Station--it FAILS, but "not by much!"
   
9. June 9, 2005 - To Goodyear Service Center (yesterday's CAMP MOMMY adventure).

Friday, June 10, 2005 - The Jeep Adventure Continues

Haleigh stayed over at a friend's house last night, so it was Mommy and the two boys this morning. We lazed around a bit in the morning (actually, one of us got some work done--guess who?!), and then we went downtown to have lunch with Daddy. We took him to the lunch counter at Belly's General Store in Virginia-Highlands, which is a trendy, urban, artsy Atlanta in-town neighborhood--soon-to-be our new neighborhood, so we've been spending a lot of time down in VAHI. After lunch, we drove around and looked at some houses, and then we took Daddy back to work.

I called Goodyear to check on The Jeep, and they said she was ready, so we drove back up to Buckhead to battle The Jeep some more, and try to get through emissions. The guys at Goodyear advised me to drive The Jeep around for 10 - 15 miles to get her good and warmed up for the emissions test. Zach, Tiger, and I set out for a 15-mile journey--the shake-down cruise--on the "backroads" of Buckhead to warm The Jeep up for her test; at the same time, being very careful to avoid cops (twice with quick turns!), because our license tag and registration is so out-of-date. The boys were vigilant, especially Zach, watching for police cars, as we worked on an elaborate tale to tell if we were pulled over--or if we broke down on the side of the road. Fortunately, I have to give her credit, The Jeep was running beautifully.

All hot and ready, we drove to the Emissions Testing Center (the re-test is FREE!), waited in line, and finally handed her over for her test...The official came back in the waiting area within moments to ask about the gas cap:
"Did you get a new gas cap?"
"WHAT?!"
"Do you remember, Ma'am [ewww, I hate that!], I told you the gas cap failed the first time, and you have to get a new one, or it will fail again."

Doh! It's 4:30pm Friday afternoon, in Buckhead, where there are no auto parts stores--and the Emissions Testing Center closes at 5:00pm. My license tag is expired--not just expired, but WAY past it's "use by" date! I had hoped to drive straight from the emissions test to the county office to bring the registration current. (That's not going to happen.) I have two boys with me, who have been wonderful for the whole adventure, but who are clearly beginning to lose it...

The official: "Ma'am, I'll take it off the machine, and you can run and go get a new gas cap and then come right back and we'll finish the test. You don't want to waste the re-test, knowing it will fail on that part again."
(Which was really, really nice of him, even though he called me "ma'am"--twice!)

I got the boys back in The Jeep, and we drove up and down Roswell Road in Buckhead, searching for a new gas cap for a 1988 Jeep Grand Wagoneer, with an expired license tag, out there like a beacon for any cop within five miles...We went to the Shell Station; we went to the car wash; we went to another gas station--no luck. I called Goodyear, and they told me about a little independent shop further down Roswell Road, Buckhead Automotive, so I went there. By this time, Zach had become quite an expert on what we were looking for, so he ran in ahead of me and told the guy what we needed. I finally got Tiger out of The Jeep, and when we walked into the store, the man was holding a brand-new gas cap for our 1988 Jeep Grand Wagoneer. I would have paid dearly, at that point--"whatever you want, sir!" But it was only $10, and change--yay! We screwed that new cap on, and we were back in business, hauling a** back up the road to the Emissions Testing Center, avoiding the police, with minutes to spare...back in line at the testing center.

We waited, waited, waited...okay, the new gas cap PASSED.
Emissions: FAIL!

Exhausted and discouraged, we drove The Jeep back to Goodyear, told them about the FAIL, got back in our nice, safe, always-reliable Chevy Tahoe, and drove home, leaving The Jeep to her fate...

Total Day 15 = $30 at lunch
Total Week 3 = $95 (You'll notice, even though we had lunch with Daddy, which normally doesn't "count" on our CAMP MOMMY budget, we paid today, since we've done so well this week. And even with that, we ended the week making up the $5 we went over last week--we're all even-steven on the CAMP MOMMY budget, going into Week #4!!!)

Day 14 - Adventure #2 - Public Transportation

FREE Adventure #2 - Public Transportation

It never fails to amaze me how kids get the biggest enjoyment out of the simplest things, like The BUC. I never even saw this one coming, and it worked out so perfectly...SO well, in fact, that all the boys want to do tomorrow is go ride The BUC! (Haleigh is at her friend's for a sleepover, so she wasn't with us on this adventure.)

What is The BUC?

BUC is Buckhead Uptown Connection--"A fast, frequent and FREE way to make tracks around Buckhead!" Buckhead is the fairly upscale, urban area of Atlanta that we live in (for now). Living within this cloistered environment, we enjoy some of the finest shopping, dining, and entertainment available in the Southeast, as well as a busy business and financial district and world-class tourism. We don't tend to take advantage of much of all that, preferring our Target/Publix/Borders shopping corner, but we do frequent the theatres at Phipps Plaza, and the Apple Store and the Food Court at Lenox Mall(a nice shopping mall), which is right across the street (a famous five-lane road called Peachtree Street) from Phipps Plaza (a very nice shopping mall).

The BUC is a high-end, energy-efficient, luxury transportation system "designed in an effort to improve accessibility and mobility in the Buckhead area"--in other words, move the people with money around easily amongst the high-priced shops, restaurants, hotels, office towers, and other venues for Buckhead employees, visitors, and residents. It is a FREE shuttle system, with a fleet of 10 compressed natural gas (CNG) buses (very nice, very clean), that run a 7-mile circuit with 25 stops, continuously, with a bus stopping every 8 - 15 minutes at every stop.

This is what my (very high) property tax dollars are paying for--we have The BUC, instead of adding on to the public elementary school so that all of our children, grades K thru 5, could stay together at one main campus. No, we have The BUC, and last year our Kindergarden students were annexed to a separate facility in a local church, about two miles from the main campus of the school. But I digress...and I'm clearly a little annoyed at the whole situation, but that's not really the point. (We're moving anyway.)

The point is, we had never ridden The BUC, and for some reason, that seemed like a grand adventure to the boys, and actually a convenient solution for transportation, since I needed to drop the old Jeep off at Goodyear for service, and we wanted to go back across Buckhead to Target. From Goodyear, we walked about half-mile to a BUC stop, and managed to run down the bus, even though we didn't need to--we didn't know at the time that The BUC stops every 8 - 15 minutes.

You might think, on FREE transportation, that it might be dirty or well-used or have a lot of homeless people just riding around all day, but not in Buckhead. We were about the most dressed-down people on the bus, in shorts and tshirts. There were office workers and businesspeople; there were what could have been nannies or housekeepers, riding from their place of employment in private Buckhead homes to the more public transportation throughout the City; and there were lots of well-dressed, decked-out black kids, male and female, hip-hop style, riding between Phipps Plaza and Lenox Mall. It was interesting and entertaining, and completely non-threatening. (I don't mean the hip-hop kids, I mean sometimes when you ride the train or the city bus, you encounter all kinds of strange characters that can make you nervous, but not in Buckhead.)

We rode almost the entire route, and got off The BUC at Target, where we shopped a little and hung out (the boys played the Playstation games in Electronics) and had a soda at the lunch counter. We could have walked home from Target, which is about a mile from the house, but we ended up catching a ride with Daddy, who picked us up on his way home.

All in all, very low-key. I didn't think it was as exciting or fascinating as the boys, but it was fine. Comfortable. The best part about it was how excited and happy they were to be riding around on this bus--who would of thought? They were so impressed, and had such a good time, they want to go back and do it all over again tomorrow. We'll see--

Day 14 - Adventure #1 - At The Library

FREE Adventure #1 - The Public Library

We set out this morning for the Summer Reading Program Kick-Off Event at the Central Branch of the Atlanta-Fulton County Public Library--downtown, about as far downtown Atlanta as you can get. I don't think we'll be going quite that far downtown again: too busy, too complicated, too dangerous for a Mommy on her own with three kids and lots of people just hanging out.

The Library had a balloon artist do a show for the children, which was great--Haleigh and Tiger LOVED it, Zach was 'bored' and wanted to leave as soon as we got there. Which worked out, because we could only find meter parking with a 30-minute time limit, so we left after the first show. We missed the Science Guy who was up next, but we did ride the elevator to the top floor of the Library (7), and stopped at every floor on the way down (we had the elevator to ourselves) to see what we could see. We ran to the meter, put another 50 cents in, and got donuts at the Dunkin' Donuts we parked in front of--everybody was happy. Still, I think we'll stay at the Library branches a little closer to home.

The Atlanta-Fulton County Public Library has dozens of neighborhood branches around the metro area, and they have a whole catalog of programs and events for kids throughout the summer. There is always something going on, for all different age ranges and interests. Definitely check with your local library to see if they have summer events for kids. It's a great way to get the kids into the library, keep them reading through the summer, and usually the programs are FREE, which works out very well for CAMP MOMMY!

Except when you get suckered in to Dunkin' Donuts!
Day 14 Total = $10 for a dozen donuts and drinks.

Day 13 - The Re-Supply Mission

CAMP MOMMY - Day 13

Out of sheer desperation, and running out of dishwasher soap, which is just nasty--we went to the grocery store today for the three-weeks' delayed and much-dreaded re-supply mission.

It was as awful as I had feared--and I only had two of the three with me. Zach went to Daddy's office today, which is a wonderful option to have once a week or so.

I took them to McDonald's first to try and burn off the energy they had built up all morning, helping me get the house ready to show this afternoon while we were out (two different showings--fingers crossed!). I made them drink milk and water instead of soda, and we didn't even have ice cream. But it didn't help. They were still crazy in Publix (although I did not go to my usual store--I don't want to burn bridges with my people!), making it a very stressful half-hour. It seemed much longer than that--

It's not even that they are that bad--they don't break things or run uncontrolled through the aisles. They are just high energy, they talk a lot, and they do tend to get in the way, typically dancing in the center of the aisle, playing with their free balloons. There were no double-carts available when we started shopping, and I didn't have room for them to ride in the cart, so...you do what you gotta do.

I avoided making eye contact with anyone, and kept up a running commentary:
"Tiger, single file Honey--don't dance in the middle of the aisle."

Most Embarrassing Moment: When Tiger decided to share his new shopping etiquette with a large black lady, pushing her cart down the aisle toward us, Tiger yells out:
"Hey! You're in the way, Big Lady!"
(Which is just what he hears, except he's "Big Guy".)
Oh.My.God...

I tried to explain, apologize, crawl under the cereal display, but what do you do? When you know, in that moment, you have contributed to some beautiful young woman's decision *never* to have children...

I smiled, rolled my eyes, grabbed the child, and fired off to the other one:
"Haleigh, can you find me the Lucky Charms? How about the Grape Nuts for Daddy?"

(The Treasure Hunt is by far one of the best strategies for getting through the store with age 7 & up.) (I don't know what to tell you for almost-five-year-olds.)

By the time we got to the check-out, with our overloaded shopping cart and $200 worth of groceries, I was over the edge. Done. Fortunately, the checker and bagboys took over, with the groceries and the kids, who always love a good conversation about sports, school, or video games. It distracts their attention from the impulse candy and gum.

God Bless the bagboys--

Day 13 Total = $10 lunch at McDonald's
(I didn't buy any rewards or treats today--I bought them food, by god, and they should have paid me for good behavior in the grocery store!)