Day Two
July 27th, 2008
You would think after driving 1400 miles I would have some of my journal written. But it is just as difficult to concentrate in a van with your children as it is to concentrate at home with your children. And there is just as much to do. Even as Im typing there is chaos around me. Boo is playing with Mr. Frog, Ariel is talking to me about who knows what, & Mulan is looking out the window at Donald who is digging through the car frantically because I lost my keys this morning and he lost his phone just now.
That doesnt make this road trip sound very fun, does it? But in truth its been very fun. And the children have thoroughly enjoyed themselves. Even Boo is giggling and laughing and having a grand ole time. She has been an absolute angel. And were not even close to the best parts yet.
Friday, the 25th was packing day. My life has been so insane lately at work & arranging a friend's wedding and everything else going on, that we had not packed or cleaned anything. Thursday had been very frustrating as to pack up 5 people for a road trip would require a lot of stuff. And a lot of stuff makes a big mess. Which I wasnt allowed to do because we have a Bible study in our house Thursday evening so I felt like I kind of lost Thursday.
Then on Friday I had invited my best friend over for lunch because she was having a terrible week and I didnt want to leave for two weeks without seeing her. But because I lost Thursday I didnt have everything done and I left the house for a few last minute things & completely forgot about our lunch date. When she called me, she sounded so disappointed she might cry. So in spite of the fact that I had not one thing packed & I felt like everything was in shambles, I met her at her house for a chat. Which ended up working perfectly. The girls simply couldnt tear themselves away so I left them there & got my hair cut and finished up the list. By 3:00 p.m. we were home and truly ready to get packing. Donald met us at home and mayhem commenced.
While it was still daylight, perhaps around 8:00 p.m. we had the car top carrier loaded and were ready to go. I colored my hair and took a shower. Mom and Dad brought there stuff over and by 9:15 I was watching Monk & Psych. By 11:00 p.m. I was asleep.
And by 3:40 a.m. on the 26th I was being awakened by an annoying alarm clock bursting me out of a dead sleep. Donald was asleep on the couch, as was Boo with her butt half hanging off. He awoke very slowly. I woke up the girls & could tell we were never going to make our 4:00 am appointed time. Donald mentioned coffee & I went to make it at 3:56. Finally, (it felt like forever) it was done and by 4:20 we were at Mom & Dads. We left at 4:30 a.m. in good spirits (though Im pretty sure Dad was a bit irritated with our late departure time.)
Donald had played with the GPS a bit while we were packing & had added all of our stops for our first day. Weve taken to calling her Sheila and sometimes we trust her, sometimes we dont. But I will say this, Ive certainly not looked at the map as much I usually do. Sheila can adjust to whatever speed you are driving so the arrival time on her is completely accurate. I love that. Sometimes when Im on a driving trip & I print out Mapquest times, I feel like Im racing to beat the time it says I could get there. Its like its a challenge to me to live up to its expectations. But Sheila adjusts. If you stop to use the restroom she simply says, Recalculating, and a new arrival time is in place. Its as if that original time never existed at all. So there is no need to race. And no need to look at a map for general stuff. No expectations. Just sit back and enjoy the ride. Sheila will take care of you.
The open road ahead of me (me in the mirror) and our trusty new best friend: Sheila:
But we did find a few times when following Sheila surely would have been a bad idea, or in our first case, her directions were fine, but not the directions I had intended. Our first stop was at Kickapoo State park in Illinois. I had intended on pulling off at the second exit as it was an easy on, easy off. But I wasnt paying attention & Sheila directed us to the first exit. Fortunately I had printed an accurate Kickapoo state park map off the net (it was not easy to find a Kickapoo map, let me tell ya) and Mom was able to get us to a playground fairly painlessly.
It was nearly 10 a.m. to us (though only 9 in central time) and we stopped for breakfast. Dad pulled out his basket of food (very pretty & quaint, but in my honest opinion, and after the strawberry incident earlier today, not very practical) and his campstove. I pulled out my tablecloth (pretty and practical, thank you very much) which was packed in a Wal-Mart bag (not pretty at all but exceedingly practical) with the paper plates, napkins, and plasticware. Boo & Ariel & Mulan went down the slide over & over again while Donald jumped rope and Mom looked for cicadas. We took a little jaunt into the woods (a very little jaunt) but scared off all the cicadas by being way too loud.
Breakfast was great. Toad in a hole made with sourdough bread served with bacon and fresh berries. I had eaten a Kashi bar earlier and didnt really feel like eating anything so I pretended to eat & Dad fortunately didnt really notice. Donald had two, Mulan gobbled down hers, and Ariel didnt really like it. It really was more of a Mulan breakfast versus an Ariel meal. Then the slide a few more times, a potty break in very old but clean bathrooms, and we were on our way.
Kickapoo picnic:
Our next stop was supposed to be the Mississippi Valley Welcome Center. Here, yet again, Shiela led us astray. And yet again, I was absorbed in entertaining children & before I knew it we were headed away from our scheduled stop. There were two ways around the city and we went the south way. The Welcome Center was the north way.
So we recalculated from a map and managed to find a delightful scenic overlook with great facilities, a beautiful overlook of the Mississippi, and low & behold: a playground! There had been some kind of flood even more recently than the actual flood of Iowa of 2008 and there was debris & fallen trees everywhere. And the Mississippi looked so powerful. Dad made us ham & cheese grilled sandwiches with delicious homemade hummus & pita chips. Yummy! Mom & I peed in the woods and then spent time cleaning out the van. Then, we were off again. Kids happy and adults ready to move on. It was a great little park and lunch and it was really easy to get on and off the highway there.
The Mississippi:
See all the broken trees? It was worse than this looks. But Boo looks unconcerned.
THe mighty Missouri. It was actually really beautiful but by the time we got out camera out, we had mostly missed the gorgeous part & just got the bridge enterance. Oh well, I remember how pretty it was & that's the important part.
From there we headed straight to Des Moines where our first mandatory overnight stop was. A La Quinta in Clive. It was nice. $58.00. An indoor pool. And less than a mile to a Rockbottom Brewery and a Barnes and Noble. What more could one family need in a hotel? We went swimming. We filled our bellies with beer, steak, enchiladas, etc. Then we cruised around the Barnes and Noble. And then we CRASHED! Dont forget, my alarm had gone off at 3:40 AM! Zoicks! I went to sleep at 9:00 pm and never woke up once until 6:00 am. It was an amazing nights sleep. Well deserved after logging over 750 miles in one day.
Day Two:
Which brings us to today! Over 600 miles logged today and in addition
The La Quinta where we stayed had a free breakfast. They had hardboiled eggs and freshly made waffles along with normal continental breakfast things. It was nice, the girls enjoyed the waffles very much, except for Boo who was too busy rushing around with excitement to eat. HYPER! Donald packed up the van and I realized I didnt have my keys. Its a little scary as now we only have one set and that is not good.
We started off with a five hour drive. The baby fell asleep, I was driving, and Donald played Civ 4. Ive yet to do anything more than load it & look around. But I think Ill love it. Anyhow, I was driving & the first 5 hours were painless. I was concentrating on not wasting gasoline which kept me busy keeping my RPM on target & trying to talk to my deaf father over the loud music which was not too successful since I myself am deaf and background noise exacerbates our already challenging communication. But despite giving the second row good laughs, I think he & I did just fine.
We stopped to fill up for gas, giving Sheila a heart attack, and Boo ran around the gas station store like a maniac. Ive never seen so much squealing in delight at peanuts and Pringles and suckers, etc. The rest of us used the facilities and then we made another unscheduled but well needed stop at Taco Bell. A side note, I had found a book at the library called The Next Exit and it was very helpful. It lists the main highways of every state and then has every exit on those highways with every single thing at each exit. It makes finding an exit with what you desire less of a crap shoot and more of a sure thing. Very helpful.
Anyway, from there we followed Sheilas directions and arrived at our destination unscathed, the Corn Palace. I wasnt sure what I would think of the Corn Palace, but it was an enjoyable break. It is fascinating to see the corn art, especially after our 1000 miles of driving past relentless corn fields. And the inside offered another potty break & a fun little gift shop.
Donald trying to get a good shot of the girls in front of the palace.
Corn Art, the theme this year is hometown heros, so this is teachers:
And parents, my favorite:
Inside the gift shop some buffalo attacked Boo (she looks scared, too!):
And desire attacked Donald:
On our way back to the car we made a little stop for homemade ice cream.
Ice Cream from the friendly people in Mitchell:
We then drove for another three hours to the Badlands. We stopped about two hours in at a little information center where Boo found a puppy to be her friend and Mom found some tour book brochures.
One thing she found which interested her was a Petrified Garden. So we added that to our to do list (but we didnt tell Sheila) and hopped off on the right exit. We thought we would have a little picnic there and paused briefly to buy some beer first.
When we got to the Petrified Gardens it was a little shanty and there were no picnic grounds. Not only that, but it was 96 degrees out in blazing sun with high humidity, not exactly picnic weather. So we popped the beer into the cooler and went into the strange little building and fenced in garden and hoped for the best. It ended up costing only $25 for all of us and was very enjoyable.
The family who owned it had been collection fossils and petrified would and beautiful rocks since the 1930s all found in the badlands. It was interesting and quite the little collection, and interestingly displayed. They had all these tacky little hand written signs which ended up being informative.
An actual printed sign:
Mom & Mulan, I swear it is rock and not a tree, see all the funny signs behind them?:
From there we made a lovely stop at a prairie dog town. I was a bit nervous about this stop just like I had been about the Petrified Gardens as it looked like holes in the ground and dirt and I was just sure no prairie dogs would come. But Mom & Dad had been there before so we stopped. I went to buy prairie dog unsalted peanuts ($.50 a bag) it turned out to be delightful. Mulan and Ariel started feeding them and they kept getting closer.
When Boo finally figured out what was going on she was in hog (or dog) heaven. At first she followed one dog and when it went down a hole she was very sad and just stayed there waiting for it to come out that hole not realizing the holes were connected to undergrounds tunnels and that the prairie dog was never coming out of that hole again. She simply would not leave that one hole.
Come out little prairie dog, come out.....
But then she figured out he was never coming back and there were other dogs to be had. She clapped and dance and giggled and squealed. Prairie dogs were the absolute best and she had no desire whatsoever so leave them. Dad had to carry her and when he set her down near the van, she turned right around to go back.
Once we cajoled her into the van we briefly stopped at a dugout prairie house which was interesting to think about but we didnt want to spend much time there.
We were ready to see Badlands. To be honest, I didnt enjoy them as much as I could have. Boo was absolutely exhausted and wrestled with me instead on sleeping so my viewing was obstructed. It was way too hot to take any of the walks to the overlooks. And the girls were not that interested in the badlands so we had to keep yelling at them to turn off their little TVs. It was incredibly beautiful there in the badlands and I think in other circumstances I could have stayed a long time looking at the scenery.
Boo flying over the badlands:
Mulan a little nervous about the edge of the rock:
But I was done rather quickly and ready to just go to the hotel. Mom took pity on me and took Boo who screamed and wrestled with her but finally succumbed to sleep and then the badlands were behind us and Wall drug with its omnipresent signs was in front of us.
I actually enjoyed Wall Drug. Mulan & I split up from Donald and Ariel and we took lots of pictures and saw the sights, bought Mulan some hair clips and a puzzle for all the girls, and were back in the car.
Did you say jackalope?
Next stop: Watiki water park!!! We knew it was too late for us to swim this day but at least we would be at the same spot for 2 nights. Finally a break from the driving, driving, driving.
Which brings us to the lost phone. Donald found it under the bed in our room. The search and stress had emotionally exhausted him. He had a beer, took a shower, and went to sleep. Things like that are so frustrating as you know for a fact that it cant be lost and yet it is. And youre too tired to deal with it simply. That phone is his life. Losing it isnt really an option.
After his shower, I showered myself and typed this trip report and now am off to bed. How absolutely luxurious to lay in a soft bed with two warm girls wrapped around each other and ponder over our trip so far.
Its been lovely to travel 1300 miles with 3 little girls and my parents. It has been. No one feels they must fill dead air so there is companionable silence as well was pleasant conversation. The girls have so many activities there has been no whining at all. And Boo has been very good. Who knew?
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