15 hours in the car today. Killed a lot of bugs on the windshield. 15 hours is not a misprint. Before we left on our trip we had friends telling us that we were crazy for wanting to drive around the country with 4 kids, and days like today were the reason why. So, you see in this picture the endless, lonely road, the dead bugs, and the styrofoam plate with crumbs from the sandwiches Tiffany kept making all day.
We left Mason City, Iowa at 7am, drove north into Minnesota, across southern Minnesota, and then across the entire state of South Dakota, and into Wyoming, where we pulled into our hotel at 10pm.
I wish I could tell you some about some great conversations, witty dialogue, and fun family time that we spent. The reality is that it was kind of boring. The good news is that the kids didn't really complain and we had a good time.
Really there were 2 highlights of the day, and I'll share them out of order. The second highlight was almost hitting a deer on the desolate roads of Wyoming at dusk. The deer jumped out in front of our minivan while I was doing 70 (ok...75....ok.....77) and I swerved hard to avoid it. The deer decided to speed up and keep sprinting in the same direction that I was swerving. Fortunately at the last second he stopped and we missed him by a few inches. In the end, it's really not much of a story, but the kids couldn't stop talking about it. They are really excited to share with their friends about how they almost died at the hands of a massive gazelle (that's what they decided it really was....instead of the truth that it was a fairly petite deer).
But, the real highlight of the day was stopping at Mount Rushmore. To be honest, I wasn't really that excited about Mount Rushmore. Yes, I love studying Presidents and I'm a U.S. history dork, but I thought Mount Rushmore would be something that you looked at from a long way away and after 5 minutes would say, "ok, that was cool...now back in the car kids."
Instead, it was truly inspiring.
No comments:
Post a Comment