On the road again...

Remember when I used to update this thing? Like on a regular basis? I'll be trying to do that again now that we are settled in.

If you hadn't heard yet....we've moved! Near the end of January, we packed up our apartment, said good-bye to our ghetto-fabulous neighborhood and hit the road. After some tearful good-byes with our Oklahoma friends and family, we set out on our journey of epic proportions. Our goals? See some family along the way, stay ahead of the bad weather, find a geocache in every state that we passed through (okay, not really my goal - obviously) and beat the moving truck to our new place. All goals were accomplished.....except for the geocache, thanks to a sleeping baby and a wife that would not allow her husband to stop in the state of Pennsylvania for fear that the baby would wake up (In my defense, we were only in Pennsylvania for like 30 minutes and Thomas had just fallen asleep and he ALWAYS wakes up when the car stops). But who wants to listen to me blabber about it? Adventures are so much more fun when they can be experienced second-hand through my mad photography skillz.

Our first stop: The Homestead. We actually have very little evidence that we were even in Missouri, except for a few pictures of Thomas discovering the basket o' balls:





Me finding a cute little boy in the clean laundry:


and Thomas getting brain freeze from frozen blueberries:


So, we didn't even get a shot with Grandma and Grandpa. Oops. We were on a tight schedule. Next stop:


IOWA!!!

To visit my big sister, Linley (who is actually two inches shorter than me and shrinking) and her family. We got to visit with some old friends and hang out with Linley and the fam for an evening. They fed us a tasty meal and put us up in their finished basement for a night (it was the best night's rest that Thomas had the entire trip!)and 6 yr. old Meredith was kind enough to force her barely loose front tooth out of her mouth while we were there so we could be a part of the tooth fairy excitement. The next morning we were up early so we could hit the road again. This time, I put my skillz to work and actually took a picture before we left:


Thomas had lots of fun with his cousins. We were sad to go, but there was still a lot of Iowa left to see on our journey eastward. Linley, however, did not let us go empty-handed. That's not her style. She sent us off with a traveling companion. Meet Zip, our 8" long ball of synthetic, furry fabulousness:


He is actually part of my nephew's elementary class project. All the kids are supposed to send their stuffed animals on a journey with someone they know. The animal is supposed to report back on their adventures, etc. The little critter even came equipped with his own passport. We were more than happy to take part in the fun. This kitty made quite the trek with us. He mostly just hung out on in the sun on the dashboard (typical cat), so you'll see him in a lot of pictures. Back to the journey. Where was I? Oh, yes. Iowa.

Friends, don't be fooled. There's more to Iowa than just corn and bad football.

There is a noodle factory:


The World's Largest Truckstop (with a Dairy Queen - bonus!!!!)


The National Animal Disease Center (which we unfortunately didn't get a picture of)

And endless fields of snow:




Before we knew it, we were crossing the Mississippi...


..into....


ILLINOIS!!

Okay. Story time. I guess more accurately, it would be "story within a story" time (since this entire post is a story). So, as soon as we enter Illinois we start seeing all these signs that say "CHICAGO!!!!" on them with arrows pointing the direction to Chicago and other signs that said "CHICAGO ONLY 4,930,384 MILES AWAY!!" (okay - maybe that's not entirely accurate). Anyway, Kenta kept saying "AHHH!! GET A PICTURE OF THAT SIGN THAT HAS CHICAGO ON IT!!!". And of course he was saying this as we were driving UNDERNEATH the sign. Needless to say, I was tired and frustrated and not feeling super Christlike, so I kept getting mad at him as I was struggling trying to stop what I was currently doing and grab our ancient camera in time for it to turn on, focus (which takes about 3 years) and - finally - take the picture. So at the pinnacle of my frustration with the forced documentation of how close we were to Chicago, Kenta says, "A CHICAGO SIGN!!!!!" and I took this picture...


...as my sandwhich was sliding out of my lap. Then I proceeded to say some not-nice things to Kenta (which I apologized for and still feel badly about). I realize that if I had driven the 2,000 miles, that would have left his hands free to take as many pictures of roadsigns as he wanted to, but since he was making the greater sacrifice by doing all of the driving, I was kind of being a jerk. So this picture reminds me that I was a jerk. I did, however, manage to take a beautiful picture later on when I was feeling more Christlike and less jerky:


Ahhh...isn't that lovely? The only thing prettier would have been a picture of the actual city. However, we apparently were never close enough to snap a shot because we were still straining our necks and eyes looking for Chicago when we suddenly found ourselves in...


INDIANA!!

Our plan that evening was to make it to South Bend (which we did) and have a restful evening. After brinner at IHOP, where Thomas flirted with the waitress and the table full of old ladies next to us, we went back to the hotel for some rest. The next day we got an early start and headed a little off course so that Kenta could find a geocache in nearby.....


MICHIGAN!!!

Add another state to your passport, Zip. We were barely two miles north of the Indiana border, but it still counts, right?

Thomas was so good in the car this day. He ate books:



and slept a lot:


When he finally woke up, he looked like Quasimodo:


It didn't take very long until we found ourselves in...


OHIO!!!

And this time, we actually did see a big city:


Which made Kenta very happy.

This made me happy:


and so did this:


I tried to get a shot of Lake Eerie, per Kenta's request, but this was the best I could do:


We took another tiny detour so we could make a quick visit to historic Kirtland, OH. and snap some shots of the temple:



Then it was back to the road. Apparently we passed through:


PENNSYLVANIA!!!

But I honestly don't remember it (even though I took this picture). Twentiesh minutes later we were in:


NEW YORK!!!

Now it was my turn to take pictures of road signs:


That's seriously like the closest we got to NYC. I was surprised to see how rural and wide open New York was. It was really quite beautiful.

I knew we our journey was winding down when I started seeing signs that said:


BOSTON!!!

and it was all but over when we entered...


MASSACHUSETTS!!!

At this point, I had pretty much stopped taking pictures because Kenta's iphone was far more entertaining. I don't remember driving through much of Massachusetts, but I'm pretty sure I read every article on CNN.com and checked my email at least 468 times.

When I saw that we had entered...


NEW HAMPSHIRE!!!

I wanted to collapse on the ground and cover it with kisses. 'Twas, by far, the sweetest moment of the entire journey. I might even frame that picture of Zip and the New Hampshire sign. It just means that much to me.

So there you have it. We survived. We made it to our new home and, so far, we quite like it. I'll be posting some pictures once we get stuff cleaned up and organized completely. Until then, a reminder of why we won't be making any major road trips again any time soon:


I swear. There really was a hole back there for him to breathe through.