Day 2

We were all kind of settling down around 12 a.m. last night and Mrs. Teresa was still on her computer at the desk and Mr. Gary from the bed laying down flat of his back grumbles, "Teresa you gonna' have to turn off that computer and go to bed!" Well, the room from Hades turned into the North Pole around 2 a.m. and of course we had stripped the beds down to just sheets because it was 110 degrees initially. Mrs. Teresa got up around 4 a.m. to use the bathroom and looked over at Hunter and Alli which were in the fetal position and she covered them up with more blankets. I was freezing but too tired to care so when I tried to put my corpse arm back under the covers, Justin kept throwing it back out, finally he wrapped it in a sheet and shoved it back under the cover. Around 6 Teresa cuts on most of the lights and I halfway wake up look around turn over and request the air be turned to the off position. We slept till 7, yeah a whole hour, and got up to meet Bruce, Jess, kids, and Jonathan (their house friend) at Chic-fil-A... yummy chicken biscuits. The kids were sitting at a table across from us where I just so happened to catch Alli the 6 year old say, "Hey guys why did the chicken cross the road? To come to chic-fil-a!" Yes baby, they definitely did come here but not on free will but, I'm so glad they did. We were still poking fun about the step ladder so while we were eating Mrs. Teresa disappeared. Justin, myself, and Mr. Gary decided to walk over to Schnuck's to get ice and mountain dew's while the other Crockett's visited with their house friend. On our way over to the store,  we met her walking out of Home Depot with nothing short of a brand spanking new step ladder.. yes mam! :) Awesome! We are now back in the van for our long day of travel, we expect to drive at least 10-12 hours today. The kids so far are a little more restless for sure, so I'm about to hand off the laptop for them to watch a movie... that'll buy hmmm.. 15 minutes.

 It's now around 12 and we are driving through Kansas City, Missouri, the kids are hilarious. Bruce and Jessica are asleep behind Mrs. Teresa and myself but behind them the comments flying are quite funny. The first few big buildings that we saw Alli said, "Look Kati at that big bank! It's going to move if you don't look!" Then down the road she said, "Oh my goodness! We are in New York! Look at the skyscrapers!" Several "Wows!" were called out and Isaac was looking out his window by himself on the opposite side and said "Oh look, it's a windmill! It's blowing really fast! Well.. nevermind it's gone. Uncle Justin is looking straight he can't see it." Alli looking out her window talking to Kati, "Your parents are dozing they can't see New York! This has got to be where we're going we've been in the car for hours!" Poor kids, in actuality we aren't even halfway there. Kati asked me, "Did Alli act like this when ya'll went to St. Louis before?" Eli was saying, "It's so pretty!" all the way through the city. Hunter may have looked up a couple of times, he's not impressed yet. They were all just reprimanded and told to settle it on down, we are through New York a.k.a. Kansas City. In the midst of all this fun my husband is a smoker in a van of non-smokers which means he can't smoke for hours while we are traveling, it's kind of funny actually although I shouldn't laugh. The poor guy is suffering through it with a somewhat good attitude and sooner or later we will find him one of those electronic vapor cigarettes so he can survive the rest of our trip. We laugh and say he smokes at least five when we take potty breaks... 

Side Note: Bruce asked his mom and I did we have an empty bottle, we told him no... he
then told us he wanted it to potty in.. then proceeded to say that he has the bladder of a girl. Moral of the story: Don't pick up any bottles in the van without examining them first.
It could be anything: water, pee, then again it could be tobacco spit. Take your pick. 

Justin and I had the first spousal spat looking for a place to eat lunch, he gets very irritated driving us all around which can be stressful for sure. I then broke down like a big baby in Mickey D's in the women's bathroom from well lack of sleep and traveling when to the rescue came my very sweet sister in law to give me a bear hug with leg no doubt which I have to say did help... I may need another before the trip is over. 

Spat over and all is well in the van of fun at 5 p.m. where we are currently looking for somewhere to release the energy that is building up from the back seats and another place to eat. Justin just asked was there a prison yard we could drop them all off at. It actually sounds pretty good to me.. secure and fenced. Hmmm... anyway we drove to Sioux City, South Dakota where we ate at a little place called The "Q" it was actually pretty yummy, we all had delicious barbeque and drove to a small play park to let the kids burn off some energy. 

The inside of the van has peculiar smells about every 10-15 minutes I kid you not... Mr. Gary kept blaming it on cattle haulers, however, I didn't see a cattle hauler in site when I was driving anyway except at the gas station. Mysterious. Hunter did out of everyone own up to a few of the smells... my favorite line from him on this topic was, "I smelt it, cause' I dealt it!" And on another occasion when I asked him if it was him doing it, he grinned and said, "Maybeeee." 

We were then set to get to our destination via the driving of Justin and moi for the night which is amazing.... it's a motel called, "The Iverson Inn" located in Murdo, South Dakota. Bruce called ahead of time and got us three rooms which we were all excited about because it was individual space for us all to unwind. We drove up and the place was literally glowing... PINK! Yes sir! Pink glowing lights lining the outside of the building with a flaming Iverson Inn sign outside.. whoop whoop. It does have free WiFi though! Score! Oh this trip gets better and better by the minute. I have to say the smell is much better than the Super 8 from last night and it is indeed clean just very, very interesting. Oh well, we've driven about 10-11 hours today and I'm exhausted so I'm going to bed in our pink motel and pretend I don't see the glow from outside our window.
 

   












Tomorrow Badlands and Mount Rushmore...

Sweet dreams!
Melissa