The End Is Near

Of this journey, at least. This road trip began two weeks ago today, and as I type we are only 2 1/2 hours from home. It has been a GREAT family vacation and I cannot begin to say enough about it. We will have driven 5,250 miles, seen 16 states, a good portion of the beautiful America, and a vast amount of God's glorious creations. We have laughed, cried, yelled, been ill, stopped at umpteen McDonald's to potty, covered umpteen toilet seats with toilet paper, been scared, excited, exhuasted, sang, worshiped, and so much more together. If you have never taken a road trip like this with your family, I HIGHLY recommend you doing so. We have made memories that will last us forever...and I have 1400+ photos to prove it!

I'm excited to get back home, but it is a little bittersweet too. Once we get home, we will each have our "seperate ways" to go with work, Camp Ney-a-Ti and so on. But we are already making plans for our next road trip! We have had such a great time, we cannot wait to do it again!

Looking forward to seeing our family and friends that we have missed! When I get home (and rested) I plan to do a summary post and will begin posting more photos. Thank you to all of you who have been praying for our safe travels, who have kept up with us on our little journey and who have been helping taking care of our home, garden and Daniel's newly laid sod! We love you all!!!

Driving Through Missouri

We spent the night in Kansas City on the Kansas side. So when we got up and left, it was only a few minutes before we hit Missouri. We had been saying how we have not had any rain the whole trip. And also that we've been lucky and not had any major road construction issues along the way. Well, that all changed today. We had both. And of course, it was my turn to drive.We spent a few hours driving toward St. Louis. It rained most of the way and was overcast the rest. We got to St. Louis around 3 PM.

We kept looking for the Arch. And finally we began to see it peeping over the buildings.Trying to find a place to park down near the riverfront. The great Mississippi river was flooding here a little bit too.

Once we got up to the Gateway Arch, we saw these firetrucks. Apparently something was wrong with the elevator system that takes you up into the arch. Unfortunately we weren't able to do that. So we went into the Museum and gift shop, which by the way, has very very high security. We had to do the airport strip down to get in.

The museum was pretty neat, telling the history of discovering and establishing the West. Lots of great exhibits.

We left St. Louis after about an hour and a half and were immediately in Illinois. I didn't get a picture of that sign because it came up before I knew it and was in the middle of the interstate interchanges. We stopped here and ate some Chinese for dinner and then topped it off with some yummy Cold Stone Creamery ice cream. We traveled southeast and then entered Kentucky. It was getting late but Daniel really wanted to keep driving until we got home. However the kids (and wife) were all getting cranky so we got a hotel across the Tennessee state line in Clarksville for the night.

So to summarize: 5 states total on one rainy day. We are tired and exhuasted but at least we should be home tomorrow!

Kansas City....Finally!!!

After a very long drive across the 350ish miles of Kansas, we finally reached Kansas City at 6 PM. We checked into our hotel, the Drury Inn, and then went to eat at Applebee's. We met Chuck and his wife, Tabitha there for dinner. Daniel plays World of Warcraft with Chuck (as well as Lougene). They just recently moved to Kansas City and since we happened to be traveling through here, we were able to meet up. We had a very nice time. How neat that we were able to meet like that.

Tomorrow we will be heading to St. Louis!

Bye Bye Colorado Mountains!

We got up early this morning so we could begin another full day of travel. We left Colorado Springs at 7 AM. As we headed East, it was quite obvious that we were leaving the mountains behind. All we could see in front of us was flat open land as far as the eye could see.

Since I was unable to get a picture of the "Welcome to Colorado" sign the night we entered, I had to settle for this "Leaving Colorado" sign.

We entered Kansas at 9:30 AM (local time) and then crossed over into Central Time Zone at 10 AM (11AM).

Kansas, shall I say, does not have much to offer in the way of excitement. Unless you count all the signs about some peculiar claims to fame like world's largest prairie dog or a five-legged cow.

Or maybe the oil drills everywhere you look.

Or the long and straight dirt roads laid out like ribbons across the land.

Or maybe the 8-10 Kansas State Troopers we saw who like to give out $138.50 souvenirs to motorists who still think the speed limit should be 75mph like Colorado instead of 70mph.

Or needing to stop 126,983,658,593,736 times to take Amelia to the bathroom.

A Good Ole Lazy Day!!

Sometimes you have to have a lazy day while on vacation too. Today we started the day by sleeping late. We got down to breakfast within just a few minutes of it being closed for the morning. After that, we came back up to the room and did nothing until about Noon. Then we walked over to the movie theater. Daniel and the kids played in the arcade for about half an hour.

Then we got popcorn, pretzel, iced coffee (that was for me), cokes and candy before going to sit down. We watched Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. We all really enjoyed it. Even the mermaid scene didn't bother anyone too much. I did cover Amelia's eyes just in case.

After the movie, we came back to the hotel and all went swimming. Once we were tired of that, we came back to the room, got dressed and went to Fazoli's for dinner. We picked the right night because it was Kid's Night. They ate for 99 cents.

We spent the rest of tonight getting things packed up and ready to go in the morning. We plan to get up early to leave. We will be traveling most of the day through the rest of Colorado and Kansas, hoping to make it to Kansas City by tomorrow evening.

Good night everyone!

Playing at the Park and Wing Nuts

After we came off of Pike's Peak, we decided to go to one of the parks in Colorado Springs for the kids to play a bit.

Yes, that is writing and drawings on Amelia's legs. She has been doing this every chance she gets when we are driving somewhere. She says they are pictures of police men.

We ate dinner at the Buffalo Wild Wings that we walked to from our hotel. Amelia and Alex split some mac-n-cheese, but Annessa and Andrew both ate wings. They said their lips were burning by the time they finished.
It's been a good day! Good night from Colorado Springs!

Pike's Peak

Pike's Peak, nicknamed "America's Mountain," is the one of the most visited mountains in the world, with more than half a million people reaching the summit each year. With an altitude of 14,115 feet above sea level, Pike's Peak ranks 31st among Colorado's 54 Fourteeners (mountains above 14 thousand feet).

On the trip up....

This little fella is called a marmot...kinda like a groundhog.



At the top...
Check out those Rocky Mountains in the far background!


Coming down...They checked the temperature of your brakes. If they were not under 300 degrees, you had to pull over for 30 minutes to let them cool off.


The Reservoirs....
There were 3 of these reservoirs scattered throughout the trek up the mountain. The city of Colorado Springs and other surrounding communities use this water as their main water source. They allow people to fish with artificial lures, canoe and other recreational uses, however humans nor pets can swim in them.

It took us about 3 hours to travel up the mountain, spend a little while in the gift shop at the top, then travel back down. It was absolutely beautiful. And cold! The temperature dropped by 30 degrees at the peak. And very windy too. But simply amazing! This tablet was at the observation tower at the peak and truly says it all!