There aren't many people who dream of driving in a car across the country with 4 kids for 5 days. But I've always wanted to do it, and so I did. My sister Katy and I packed up the van and hit the road. It was great. The kids did amazingly well. No emergency potty stops, no tantrums, no whining, no "are we there yets", or anything. Anyway, here is how it went:
DAY 1: We left at 11 a.m. and made it to West Virginia. The route we picked seemed like a good idea until we found ourselves winding up and down and up and down and up and down mountain (in the East Coast sense) roads for 4 hours. Don't get me wrong, it was beautiful and I'm glad I've seen WV, but I can't tell you know nice it was when we finally made it to real highway and a speed limit above 40 mph. We finally made it to Ohio where we had a nice supper in some cute little town and we finally stopped for the night in Dayton.
DAY 2: We got a nice start and soon we were driving through Indiana and then Illinois. We stopped for lunch in a small little town and trespassed in some park for lunch that had lots of coyote cutouts (??). We proceeded on until we crossed the Mississippi into Missouri where we toured Mark Twain's childhood home and town. Then it was a quick jog up to Nauvoo, Illinois where we spent the night (more posts to come on our various en route adventures).
The Mighty Mississippi:
Us as we crossed the river:
This tractor thing happened to be going quite slowly and Katy encouraged me to pass it or just drive under it, which tickled Lucy to no end.
DAY 3: We spent a pleasant morning in Nauvoo and then it was off for a drive through Iowa, ending at our next destination Omaha, Nebraska. I can't begin to tell you how fun and surreal it was to go back. We walked around Village Green, drove around, and reaquainted ourselves with our former home. We even drove by Bergan Mercy where the boys were born. Fun times!
DAY 4 was mostly spent at the Omaha zoo, but we finished it off with a four hour drive to North Platte where we spent the night.
DAY 5 was a long driving day. We finished off Nebraska, drove the long stretch of I-80 across Wyoming, but then it was finally Utah. And it was breathtaking and stunning and beautiful. East or West, West is best! We were so happy to finally arrive at our destination but it was a great trip and I'm really glad I can check driving across the country off of my to-do list!
And just for good measure a taste of some of the signage we saw as we drove across "the real America":
6 comments:
That was quite the trip. How special that they saved so much snow on the mountains for you!
I'm so proud to be an American but I'm more proud to have been part of this cross country trek. It were lots of fun! Thanks for the good times!!!
Katy
The REAL America! How great is that? I'm glad you came.
D.
That is something I would love to do one day. I'm glad your kids were good sports! And how fun for you to go back and visit Omaha!
I love driving through new country and look forward to taking a similar trip someday! I'm glad you got to do that, and I'm very glad the kids were good.
crazy!! i'm glad the kids did well. i guess it helps when they get a little older, because a trip like that right now for me would be TORTURE. :)
(with my kids, that is-- with just tom it would be fun.)
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