Day 1 Conquered

The Crew and our future home for a few weeks.

The whole point of today's journey was to put some significant miles behind us. Mission accomplished. We're among the beautiful rolling hills of Iowa, surrounded by cornfields in the middle of nowhere. The last 2 hours of the drive all I could think about was River City, and Professor Harold Hill, and his boys band scam, and Marian...madam libraaaaaaar.....ian. I swear I think I saw him walk out from among the rows of corn with a marching band behind him.

Anyhoo, we made it thus far and are looking forward to rising early, grabbing some grub at the free continental breakfast (you didn't think we'd be setting up that camper just for one night stay did ya? Jim and Glady didn't raise no dummy...we're hotelin' it tonight...and tomorrow night for that matter) and off to "Little Town on the Prairie" in South Dakota where we will tour the Laura Ingalls Wilder homestead and museum. This was Jayme's request and I am excited about seeing and experiencing life on the prairie just like Ma, Pa, Mary, Laura, and Grace.

After that we'll head on over to Mitchell where there's a museum with life-sized statues of Lewis and Clark along with many other facts, maps, artifacts, etc. This was Chase's request because he is named Chase Lewis after Meriwether Lewis who is somehow a distant relative of my great-grandmother who's maiden name was Lewis. Cool eh? (Oh, and of course, we'll visit the world-renowned Corn Palace.)

Other important notes for today:
We have spotted 27 different state license plates thus far and are shooting for all 50. Think we'll find Hawaii? Ya never know. We've also started a "Quote of the Day" journal and there are two quotes entered.
* First Chase, who after sitting quietly in the backseat for many miles, suddenly blurted out, "Someday I'm going to have a sheep and I'm going to name her Baaaaaaaaarbra."
* The second is from Jayme, who upon listening to some random conversation in our room tonight remarked, "I wash my hands of this weirdness", which some of you Pirate's of the Caribbean fans may recognize. (DeBackers!)

That's it for now. Somewhere a dog barks.....(I wonder if it's Natty).

The Night Before Departure

Twas the night before departure and all through the house, not a creature is stirring, not even Natty whom we miss dearly and it's only been one day. Ok, so it doesn't rhyme but give me a break already.

Today was the big packing day, although I've been methodically packing and prepping and mapquesting and itinerary-making for weeks, you might even say months. Well, not "might" say, it has been months. Now tomorrow's the big day and I'm thinking to myself, "What in tarnation was I thinking!!!" This is huge. What if, what if, what if....that's all I'll allow myself to say because if I really say it, I might make it come true. Insert shudder here.

The kids are so excited and this will be the adventure of a lifetime and I'm pretty geeked myself, but frankly, I'm a bit freaked as well. I'm the geeked freak as it were. The kids and I prayed tonight and I just poured out my heart. Prayers for safety, prayers for protection, prayers for no flat tires, and no truck trouble, and no injuries, and no accidents...no, no, no. But an adventure can't be full of "no", so there were also prayers for bonding, and kindness, and patience, and forgiveness, and teamwork, and friendship, and worship of God's beauty and creation, and prayers for personal and spiritual growth. I don't know if the kids liked it, but I thought it was beautiful if I do say so myself.

The summer I was 22 years old I went with a group called Wandering Wheels on a bike trip across the entire U.S. of A. and I remember wondering then, "What in tarnation am I thinking?!" Even at 22 I had freaked myself out with my crazy idea of biking across the country. I think sometimes I have a tendency to bite off more than I can chew. Like I have this cool idea to take the kids camping and I can't just drive over to Lake Michigan, I gotta conquer the U.S. It's kind of like Thanksgiving when you fill your plate with excessive pounds of food and then wonder how you'll ever eat it all, but then like some gluttonous fool, you do....one bite at a time. Which, I hear, is also how one eats an elephant if one were so inclined. So, I'll gaze upon this wondrous adventure as one giant elephant standing in all her glory and I'll consume her little by little, not stressing over the entire body mind you, but just tackling her one bite at a time. And maybe, just maybe, if I concentrate on the one bite I won't freak out over the whole thing.

And now I must get to bed because that analogy was just gross.

The Bath of Natty Gan

The first order of business before the big send off was to give Natty Gan a bath so she's not smelly for the Cryderman gang who will be taking care of her. She's part lab so I know what you're thinking...piece of cake, right? Wrong. She looks lab, but her personality is totally collie and she dislikes water. You might even say, she detests water. So here we go...

We tricked her into getting into the tub by having it empty at first. Once in the tub, I knew her good natured, people-pleasing personality would take over and she wouldn't want to disappoint us so she put up with all the fuss because, well she loves us.

Here she is looking oh so forlorn.

Ah, but here she is looking mighty proud of herself and showing off her natural beauty.

And seriously, who wouldn't want all this attention and pampering?

So now she's at Joann's and the girls are all loving on her, especially Chloe who let her sleep on her bed with her last night. (And rumor has it that Brent went out on an errand run and came back with a nice tasty bone for her. He's a softy, but don't tell anyone.)