Thursday, April 19, 2007

The last of the road trip....FINALLY

So after picking up the trees on Wednesday we headed from Pennsylvania back thru Ohio, Indiana, and Illionois. We had more trees to pick up in Iowa and we wanted to make it there the next day. So that evening we switched off and I continued to drive all night. There is something about it just to drive when all the kids are asleep and you can turn on a good CD and crank up the radio. In Indiana we got detoured because of an I-80 closure to do a fatal car wreck. It made me think and be grateful that we had been safe through all our miles.

After Illinois we made it to......
......Iowa. We missed the sign the first time. We had a couple hundred of trees to pick up from one nursery and then we were on to the next. We made it across Iowa and to the nursery at 4pm. Only to find out that they had closed at 3pm and hadn't bothered to mention it to us. So much for driving all night. So we found a hotel and actually went to a cheap chinese buffet and got a good night sleep. The next morning we were on to......
......Minnesota and we continued through............South Dakota. We missed Wall Drug by only an hour. I had never heard of Wall Drug before and Jake was shocked. Maybe next time.....just kidding. We spent the night in Cedar Rapids and the next morning we drove down through......Keystone, South Dakota. Where the kids got out and did a little souvenir shopping. Cruz wouldn't get on the horse above but as soon as the girls wanted on, he didn't want off. Now everyone knows that Keystone is the gateway to......
......Mount Rushmore. This was the last of our fun and documented road saga.
Then we went and read about the mountain and some interesting facts about the sculptor (IE the mountain was never finished to the sculptor's description. He died and his son did some finish work and that is how it stands. George Washington was suppose to be finished to his waist.)

This is in real proportion.

We crossed in to Wyoming and into Idaho very late Saturday night. We kept driving because we wanted our own beds.

All in all, we traveled for 10 days, drove just a little more than 5000 miles, and crossed through eighteen different states!?

6 comments:

Alice said...

It looks like you had a great trip. Glad that you are home safe and sound.

bonny with a Y said...

what fun!

I love road trips - and one day we'll schlepp the kids across the US - i just have to wait till Annika quits driving us all crazy.

bruce said...

fantastic trip.

bonny is really quite jealous.

i'm impressed with the fact that you braved the big apple with the little kids.

we're sort of working up to that.

amy k said...

I would have love to spend more days in the big apple. It isn't very "little kid" friendly though. Maybe a second honeymoon? We actually thought about it on our first honeymoon but opted the cheaper route. Good thing too because it was over 9/11,

Betsy said...

Makes me want to do one too. Maybe we should caravan sometime.

Or Maybe we could do a rolling caravaning family reunion.

N8ster said...

Good trip. Betsy and I just counted, and she only did 17 states (well, including DC) on her monster road trip last year.

6,000 miles.

Nice to know we aren't the only ones who inflict this on our kids.