Westward Ho!!

We landed in Detroit on June 18th. June 21st, we were back on the road, headed west. We modified our original plans to travel through Nebraska and Colorado and headed south to S. Illinois, where Richelle's grandparents live. We wanted to stop in and say "Hey," since it had been over three years since we'd last seen them.

We were planning to camp our way across the country, but after driving a chunk of the day and then hanging out with my grandparents all afternoon and a chunk of the evening, we splurged on a hotel and figured that would get us on the road more quickly in the morning. The hotel also provided a breakfast buffet with the room - Belgian waffles and all sorts of other wonderful stuff.

We headed across southern Missouri and on into Oklahoma. I grew up in Oklahoma - and it was wonderful to see the fields of wildflowers, rolling plains... and, of course, feel the wind!

People often ask us how our kids do with all the traveling.

Most of the time they do really well. Teens are known to get "teenish" from time to time. Littles get whiny occasionally. Middles are prone to argue and fight if it has been too long between real breaks. Synchronizing bathroom breaks is a hit and miss sort of deal... usually miss and there are days we stop every other exit - or at least that's what if feels like.

But, for the most part, they yatter and chatter, sing, tease, tickle, play computer games, follow our progress on the map, sleep, read... and beg to stop at McDonalds every time they see a sign!

 

(Yep... Tim taking a break and letting me drive the van for awhile. He probably has no clue Anna snapped this photo. Hopefully, he'll not be too grumpy about me posting it...)

Horses often prompted high pitched girlie exclamations from the back seat, while Tim was more inclined to remark on the clouds... the hay bales... the rock and land formations...

And how could I forget? There was one other activity that most of our gang pursued while we were traveling...

Trying to get passing truckers to honk! Mary Michelle and Elsie Mae were super enthusiastic!

Mostly I enjoyed the time to talk with my hubby and Brendan (who sat right behind me), delighted in the car seat chatter and funny conversations, and allowed my eyes to drink in the lovely (IMHO) scenery and skies from the "land of my youth."

Nearly 700 miles later, however, we were all thankful to reach our W. Oklahoma campground and settle in for the night!