The day began at six, which isn’t too bad, unless you consider the plethora of times Cody and I were up last night.  It is good we were up because we had our first “Call Me Button” phone call from John around 6:15.  Yes, the button worked. :-) I haven’t tried to call myself, but apparently you just click on the button on the right, put in your phone number, Google Voice calls you, and it calls us.  Pretty neat!

I’m not sure if it is allergies or just sleep depravation, but the world was very foggy this morning.  We passed a cute park in LaCrosse, only ten minutes past the McDonalds where we uploaded this mornings posts.  We haven’t accomplished much in the way of mileage today, but we made a lot of new friends.

Children Swinging and the sound of water at the playground

Lily, who introduced herself by squirting Brooke right out of the water area, eventually lent us her water gun so we could get her back, and even invited us over for a play date.  We also met a beautiful little girl named Zoe who helped Brooke run through the water without me.  I was glad to have an excuse to run through the water and act silly. The water mixed with a fabulous PB & J helped clear my morning fog.  Being next to the Mississippi is reminding me of Florida.  It seems there is an afternoon rain shower almost everyday whether we need it or not.  Thankfully it is cooling things down nicely before they get too uncomfortable.

We made it to Alaska

I haven’t put in any pics yet, so today is the day!  I also drove the van for the first time today.  I drove less than five minutes.  For some reason Scott was afraid that I might crash.  I function very well on little sleep.  I just can’t process anything he is saying.  I’m not sure that’s such a bad thing.

It is shortly before two pm and the cuties are both out.  Serenity….

Speaking of serenity I have to say a gigantic THANK YOU to some wonderful people who helped provide entertainment for Brooke. Yesterday after only an hour of driving in the afternoon Brooke was beside herself with boredom.  I crawled in the back seat and dug into a goody bag from my wonderful friends and neighbor, Heather and Carla.  It was Christmas!  She wanted to look at everything all at once.  We went through the bug catching kit, discussed Morris Code, played with a magnifying glass, and looked through a cute Alaska animal coloring book.  We also worked on our shapes from a workbook from Grandma.  There are more goodies waiting for the future meltdowns…

This is the road we are following along the Mississippi, the green Great River Road.  We think we were in Fountain City when we took this pic.

Here is a cute pic from a scenic Mississippi River overlook at the Palisades from Day 2.  Yes, I know it is really a pic of the van, and not the Miss., but this was cuter! :-)