June 18th 10pm thoughts:

We have been so blessed so far to be able to stay in homes of friends.  We have had warm meals, even warmer company and conversations, showers, and air conditioning! During my shower this evening I was apparently reminding the Little Miss about being thankful for a nice clean and private shower too much.  She remembers some of our Alaska trip, but thankfully her memory has forgotten all of the not so fun shower memories: only cold water, showers that you had to run out of in public to hit a button to keep the water going after thirty seconds, showers where you became more dirty than you had been by using the facilities, showers where the water pressure was so high you could feel it peeling off multiple layers of your skin, showers where you couldn’t find enough change to rinse all the soap off in time…  Anyway I am thankful now because I know what may come.

June 19th:

We woke the kids up at 6 so we could get moving along, and so our host could get to work.  The kids were a little hesitant to get moving since they were up later than they should have been.  Sleeping in a new spot every night is not easy for the little guys.

“It is amazing that these bowls aren’t leaking even though they are cracked,” Scott mentions while sitting on a park bench in front of an elementary school in Fenton, MO.

“Funny you should mention that,” I say as I lift my leaking bowl and wipe the cold milk from my legs.

Add to shopping list: two plastic bowls.

“This might sound messed up, but I enjoy sitting on a park bench eating cereal much more than I do going out to eat at a restaurant,” Scott reflects.

“No, no that doesn’t sound messed up at all.  In fact I feel the same way.”

It is nice to connect and reflect while the world around us swirls in motion during morning rush hour.

The picture doesn’t do the leaf justice, but the leaves of the Sweet Gum Tree were beautiful.  Although the tree comes with the little prickly balls, consequently why our host last night, Mike, said of the tree in his backyard, “You don’t want this tree.”  The same type of tree shaded our picnic bench this morning.  Mike does such a great job of keeping up with his house that there was not even one prickly ball beneath his tree, so I didn’t know what he meant until this morning.  The picture on the right is of the kids with wet bums from sliding down the really tall and wet with morning dew tornado slide at the park.  The bonus to traveling with bins of clothing is that there are extras in the van.

While the kids played at the park Scott suggested a workout.  It was only ten minutes long with 45 second intervals of push-ups, planks, squats, lunges, and crunches.

The workout was perfect except for, “Brooke won’t share her magic!” Brooke was doing a great job of using her imagination, but she was also having too much fun torturing her brother with her imaginary magic.  First I tried coaching Brooke to use her “magic” for good and helping others. When that didn’t work I told Cody his magic was more powerful than hers, and to remember to tell her that when she won’t share.  Oops!  Sometimes I digress… :-)

When the kids in summer school came out to play on playground I decided it was time to go.

“When are we going to be there?”  Brooke asked at least ten times in the last two hours.

Scott: “The journey is the destination.”

Brooke: “What?”

Scott: “Just try to relax.”

Brooke also had a hard time relaxing while Scott was roaming off of the highway trying to find a park for us to eat breakfast at.  Scott has always had a sixth sense for finding parks and REI’s.  We don’t venture to REI as much as we used to when he and I traveled the country for a year.  Brooke was very concerned we were going to get lost.  She doesn’t know that getting lost is one of Scott’s favorite things to try to do, even though it is truly a challenge for him to get lost.  This is one of our biggest differences.  Scott has to try to get lost.  I don’t really have to try all that hard at all.

We tried to remind Brooke that as a kid she gets to just sit back and relax.  I explained that we may not always know exactly where we are going, but eventually we get to where we want to be.

Cody on the other hand asked three times in the span of an hour and a half when we were going to go back home.

I tried to get him to talk about it and tell me what he missed the most, but I think he is just over-tired.

We filled up the gas tank this morning.  Gas in MO was only $3.45 a gallon compared to $3.70 a gallon in IL.

On Tuesday Wendy’s dad joked with us about our gas mileage, “You get eight miles to the gallon?”

“No, twelve actually.”  Well, big news, so far we have been getting thirteen miles to the gallon on this trip!

When we crossed the Mississippi River, Brooke’s favorite river, we followed it all the way to its headwaters on our Canada trip three years ago, Brooke asked if the bridge was a cable bridge.

I looked to Scott to see if he remembered.  I have to admit I may read the nonfiction books about bridge construction to Brooke, but I don’t have the sponge brain capacity she does.  We will have to look up bridge construction again when we are connected.  The big bridge she is most excited to see is the Golden Gate Bridge.

Speaking of tourist attractions, every time we stop at a grocery store or for gas people just can’t help but stare at the van.  Yesterday when I came out of the Shop ‘n Save with ice one family was pointing and conversing, “a canoe, bikes, a gas can, paddles….”  I just said hello, smiled and laughed.

We arrived at our friends’ home at exactly noon.  We had a fun afternoon of making forts and running through the “Kid Wash” Scott and Ed made during one or our previous visits.  Scott had to “MacGyver” together some of the end hose pieces to make it work, but in true Scott style he got it going. Cody has long been awaiting wrestling one of his favorite wrestling buddies, Ed.  We were only planning on staying two nights, but Ed twisted our arm into staying longer.  Yeah!  I’m not in any hurry to get to the roughing it portion of the trip.  Although I like camping I enjoy having a climate controlled sleeping spot, regular showers, and the company of friends.