Mike had told us all that we would be getting an early start. We loaded the van on Wed. night and were ready to go....well almost. He and I stayed up and tried to find hotels. It was after mid-night when we were finally done. We did manage to find places to stay everywhere except Westliffe, CO. We'll continue to try to book spots or we may yet end up in Wal-mart's parking lot.
4:30 came early. We managed to get out of the house in good time - despite the fact that Mike decided to grab a bit of toast before we left. Our plan was to drive for four hours and stop for breakfast. The strategy was that the little ones would sleep for the first leg of the journey - they'd be to dazed to squabble or make much ruckus. This worked fairly well. We drove from TX to Castle Rock, CO the first day - a 14 hour day with two stops.
Chris, a friend from AL, has a daughter Amy. That's background and really does fit in here - you'll see. Amy has just returned home from a trip to Turkey and Europe. Along the way she took pictures of her feet at all the big attractions. The idea came to me about 5 a.m. that I wanted to do some sort of theme like Amy did. I thought hard about the main attractions we would be seeing on this trip, the highlights of the trip and decided....drum roll.....to photograph the kids at each bill board for prices at the gas stations we stopped at. Surprisingly the kids are going along with this fairly well. Picutres WILL follow.
We stopped for breakfast at a truck stop - cheap food and big servings. We stopped again at about 4 p.m. for lunch..... As we drove past the Academy we talked of Jared's big dream. I told him again that it is HIS dream and he should make it as big as he wants it. We also waved at the exit where Kristine and San Luis' live.
Highlights of the day would include: meals {g}, Zander's pointing out of lots of cows, RAIN and bikers everywhere. We began to realize that we must be hitting the Sturgis, SD weekend. Do any of you know what that means? From our time living in Hardin, MT we are very aware of Sturgis, SD.
When we hit Amarillo - I waved at Carol....I'll never forget this town....because after hours in the car, Zander's wit surfaced. He said, "What do you know, MOM? LOOK!! That building is as big as you are!" :::snort::: It turns out he was thinking that it was tall....and believe me we'd not seen anything tall in a good many hours. We saw miles of cornfields.....and sunflowers. We saw our first RAIN in months somewhere between New Mexico and Colorado. It was hilarious that Zander began to worry about the rain. "The grass and cows are getting WET". Goodness - we forgot how much of his life centers around West TX. I think he was to young when we left to AK to remember much at all. He was amazed at the mountains in CO.....
We stopped for "lunch" in Raton, NM. As we got out of the van Zander remarked "WOW - LOOK there are trees behind those bushes". We finally deducted that he was impressed with the number and height of TREES.....as most the trees we've seen in the last year are of the "brush" variety or mesquite - and most of them are not tall and full.
Stacia traveled well. She took a couple of long, long naps. We are realizing that the plan to start early is good - we'll see if we can keep it up.
We were honored to be the first house guests of Ken and Lynn in Castle Rock. We were chaplains together at Elmendorf. They have just moved to CO from Edwards to retire. Their things were delievered on Thursday and we were so surprised that they offered us a place to stay that night. We had a great time visiting with them, seeing the blessing of God in their life and catching a glimpse of what life after the Air Force may look like. Of coure, *I* began dreaming my own dream of an assignment to the Springs about the time Jared is accepted into the Academy...It could happen.
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