Cross-country trip

Ok, here's my synopsis of the family cross-country trip. I should have written this a long time ago! We set out from Virginia at about 6am on June 4th 05. With 2 kids, I insisted on not traveling more than 8 hours each day. Since we were driving 2 cars to start, I ended up having two blissfully quiet days... Just me and the cat in the car. The kids rode with my husband. Thanks to portable DVD players, he had a pretty quiet trip too. I think I remember him humming a Disney theme song once during a lunch stop though. (Quite humorous considering his idea of great music is Iron Maiden and Opeth.)

We stopped for the evening in Ohio, halfway between Virginia Beach, VA and Dubuque, IA. It was a pretty uneventful night. There was a big thunderstorm, that's about it though. In the morning we got up early and drove to Dubuque to spend time with my in-laws before continuing our trip. Basically the first two days were uneventful and kind of boring. We were in such a hurry to get to Iowa that we didn't have time to take in any of the beautiful scenery that West Virginia has to offer. We've never taken much time to explore Ohio or Indiana, or Illinois either and this trip was no exception.

We had a lovely visit with my in-laws. We got the chance to see everyone we wanted to see, but didn't stay long enough to start feeling antsy. We enjoyed showing our kids the farm that my husband and his father grew up on. One of the days there we watched as the baler drove around the field eating up the lines of hay laid out in rows and stopping occasionally to regurgitate a huge round bale. Every time it did, my daughter would make the appropriate sound effects to go along with the regurgitation idea. She though it was great fun! My son, who is so interested in cars, trucks, and big tractors, was terrified of the tractor and baler. Everytime it came close, he would run and hide behind the house. If I went to bring him out, he'd be tremble and say "no, let's go watch Scooby-Doo."

We got to go camping at the pond while we were there. The kids loved that. They did a little fishing, a little playing in the mud and a little bit of paddleboating. They had fun with their cousin and with the neighbor's kids too. There grandfather built a campfire that he was quite proud of! He built a little concoction of household materials that caused the fire to glow blue and green in addition to the normal orange-yellow of campfires. The kids were amazed at his ingenuity! Over and over again we heard that it was the best campfire in the world and that probably nobody else had a campfire as nice as this one.

In town, we spent time with my mother-in-law and her boyfriend. Going here is nice and relaxing. There is less to do in the Dubuque suburbs than out at the farm, but a lot more time for hanging out and talking. After a few days we got back on the road and drove across Iowa and Nebraska to Cheyenne. If you ever have to drive across either of these states be prepared for one very looooooong and pretty boring drive. Not much out here but farm fields and lots of people working hard to supply the country with it's food. I'm really glad you are there, but I don't enjoy driving though your land. We did enjoy Cheyenne however. We ate dinner right in town at a restaurant/brewery next to the railroad. Cheyenne has a lot of charm! It's much smaller of a city that what I'm used to, but there seems to be a lot to do and I'm sorry we didn't have more time to spend there. We really enjoyed the restaurant and railroad though. Lots of atmosphere! I hope we get the chance to go back and explore further.

The next day we were back on the road to drive through Colorado and our long anticipated Rocky Mountain National Park. This was to be the highlight of our cross-country trip! My husbands dream come true. Now that I've said that, I'm going to leave you in a bit of suspense because it is time to go wake my son up and get him ready for preschool. I'll continue this tomorrow.