Driving Along in my Automobile

If you will, please allow me to recap our lovely roadtripping adventure for you.
Buckle up.

Here we are on day one pulling out of Mountain Home. Aren't the children looking thrilled?

Fun Fact: Derek has absolutely no idea what the moving process means. Every time we got in the van, he would point out that he wanted to go to someplace new, and he did not want to go home.
No problem, son.
We have no home.
Every last earthly possession we have is currently on wheels.
(Except of course for that house that we can't get rid of. That is not on wheels.)

Here we are waving goodbye to Alex's preschool.

Here we are passing the Thai trailer from whence we enjoyed eating.

Here we are bidding adieu to The Walmarts, where I spent many a dollar.

Here is the sign directing us to the highway.

And here is the point in our journey when my husband insisted that I put the camera away.
And so I did.
You're welcome.

We tried to be smarter with our stops along the way.
We used to just stop for meals at fast food joints. And that, my friends, is a rookie mistake.
It's better to stop at places where the kids can run around a bit and play, and then grab food to eat in the car.
An extra advantage to that plan is that it provides about 20 minutes on the road when my children are not complaining about being hungry.
Yep. Actively eating has that effect on them.

(Note: Alex ate about a giraffe's height in Fruit by the Foot. At one point she even sang about it, to the tune of "Pants on the Ground". She sang: "Fruit by the Foot, Fruit by the Foot, Looking like a Fool with your Fruit on your Foot.  Chuckle Chuckle.)
 
The first "fun stop" we made was at a children's museum near Salt Lake City. (The Blue Star Museums program is offering free entry to military families to certain museums this summer, check it out.)

So we played for a bit.

Rode the range.

Had a geography lesson.

Tried not to cry when looking at the distance between where we were and our final destination.

And then got back in the van.

As I posted on Saturday night, we made it a good distance and stopped for the night in Laramie, Wyoming. 
Much to my husband's chagrin, I selfishly insisted on taking a shower in the morning. Apparently he would have preferred to marry a trucker who doesn't bathe on road trips. 
Despite our minor disagreement, we were on the road the next morning by 8am.

We made pretty good time, and got into Amarillo by dinnertime. We had planned to stop there for the night, but since it was only about 3.5 hours from where our friends live in Texas, we thought we would just press on.

You see, our children hadn't slept.
Again.
In the 10 hours that we were on the road.
For the second day.

WHAT IS WRONG WITH THEM??

Ahem. So since they hadn't slept, we figured if we got back on the road they would have to fall asleep and we could easily make it into town that night.

I was wrong.
They did fall asleep, mind you.
Only we didn't easily make it into town.
As soon as the last rays of the sun had disappeared, the sky opened up and we were like Noah in the great flood.
(Note that if my husband had had his way, I would have smelled like the animals on Noah's ark.)

Ladies and gentlepeeps, I have never driven through a storm like this before. It was like a sheet of water blasting the windshield.
We were creeping along at 35 mph on the highway.

And just 100 miles from our stop, we called it quits.
We stayed for the night in a hotel in Childress, Texas, after driving 693 miles on day #2.

The good news? We had a really short day #3.
We got up and let the kids swim in the hotel pool this morning, took our time getting ready (read: I was not berated for my hygeine practices), and then drove the short distance to our friends' home.

Now we are having fun playing and reuniting, and taking a break from the road!
We'll be here for about a week before we start off on the next leg of the trip.

Happy Monday to Ya'll! (just practicing)

Cordially,
Homeless Nomads in Texas