We Made It! (Part One)

Here we are at the state line a few days ago.  Some of us were a bit less excited about the photo op than I was.  :)

But let's back up a bit.  The trip was actually much, much better than we had expected.  I credit that to the power of prayer. :)  I truly felt like I had a guardian angel driving with me the whole time.  I am so thankful that God protected us and kept me from running off the road while switching out DVDs or handing out snacks or falling asleep through the boring states like Nevada, Wyoming, and Nebraska!  Phil took the lead in the truck pulling our camper, and I held up the rear in the minivan.  Jackson and Reid usually rode with Phil and I had Emmett with me.

The movers took forever to finish packing and loading (Phil started helping them load late the last night which hurried things along a bit), so we weren't able to leave in the morning like we had hoped and had to adjust our schedule a little.  Here are J and E the night before we left.  They thought this was the coolest thing...

The next morning (and into the afternoon) Phil and I scoured the house and packed up the cars, and then we pulled out of our driveway around 2:30 P.M.  Goodbye, house!  Thanks for 4 great years!

Goodbye, landscaping that I worked so hard on!  Please don't die!

Goodbye, Klamath Falls!  Thank you for the memories and take good care of all of our wonderful friends there! Gosh, it was hard to say goodbye to everyone... :(

This was our first state to pass through, which we hit pretty quickly since KF is almost on the border between OR and CA...

Here's Emmett dealing with the stress of moving.  He said several times those first two days that he wanted to go home.  This move has been hardest on him for sure.

Our first stop that night was Reno, NV.  I had planned on taking pictures of all of the state signs as we passed through each one, but I missed Nevada since it was really small and came up really fast.  So I took a pic of Reno as we came into town.  Our camper was such a blessing on this trip.  We stayed at an RV park every night and were able to just pull into our spot, hook up the water and electricity, turn on the AC, and "relax" since the beds were already set up and our suitcases and supplies were already in there.  And the boys could ride bikes and play at playgrounds for a little bit before bed.  It was great.

The next two days we did pretty much nothing else except drive.  Our next stop was Salt Lake City...

And then the next night we spent in Cheyenne, Wyoming.  No pics of those places for some reason!  I guess I was too worn out.

But then we decided to start taking it slower and let the boys have some fun along the way.  We stopped halfway through Nebraska in North Platte for lunch and let the boys swim at a public pool.  That was a big hit and a much-needed break from driving.  We spent that night right outside of Lincoln, NE.

 

And then for dinner and breakfast we ate at the same Cracker Barrel!  Ha!!

That next day we made St. Louis our goal.  Here's one for you, Becky...

Things finally started looking green once we hit Missouri.  Well, I guess Nebraska was a little bit green, too.

I was so excited when we finally started going south!!

Here are the boys relaxing for a bit at a Starbucks en route to St. Louis...

And then soon we saw the famous arch!  Phil had to search for RV parks just on his phone and sometimes he had a hard time finding good ones in the places we had planned to stop.  The only good one he could find near St. Louis was actually part of a casino and right downtown.  It had gotten good reviews so we decided to try it.

Then we had our one little mishap of the trip.  Phil turned down a cobblestone street (following the GPS) and eventually dead-ended at a bridge that only had 8 feet of clearance! Luckily there wasn't much traffic on the street and Phil was able to back up (with the help of a nice passerby who guided him and then jumped in the truck to show Phil the way to the RV park, which was right nearby).  I was really proud of my hubs because it was quite a sticky situation and he really kept his cool and got out of there pretty uneventfully.

The RV park was actually the nicest one that we went to the whole trip.  Paved roads, patrolled by casino security, a great playground, and a gorgeous view of downtown and the arch!  If I had been able to have a glass of wine it would have been totally perfect!

To be continued... (I've been working on this post a little at a time for about a week so I guess I'll go ahead and post this much and add the rest later!)