Final Day

Good morning Ohio!:

I did the first driving shift and then took my turn in the back after lunch. You can't see the Burger King we are eating in this photo:

You can get an idea of the quality of our Mad Libs on Day 16:

Today was also another four state day!:

Ohio to Pennsylvania:

New Jersey:

In New Jersey we hit 4000 miles on this trip!:

Home is in sight!:

So close!:

And finally we were back in New York!!!:

Heath was so happy to almost be out if the car:

It was a very long drive so we decided to do a survey of the car about the trip:

1. Favorite state:

Heath: Montana

Erin: Montana

Mike: Montana

Andrew: Montana

Heidi: Wyoming 

2. Favorite Place:

Heath: Glacier National Park

Erin: Badlands National Park

Mike: Devil's Tower National Park

Andrew: Glacier National Park

Heidi: Yellowstone National Park

Nicely done Teddy Roosevelt!

3. Favorite site:

Heath: Wind Cave, SD

Erin: Devil's Tower, WY

Mike: Night program at Badlands, SD

Andrew: Elephant Rock, Gates of the Mountains, MT

Heidi: Gates of the Mountains, MT

4. Favorite meal:

Heath: Buffalo Wild Wings, Marion, OH

Erin: Buffalo Wild Wings, Helena, MT

Mike: Junction Cafe, Browning, MT

Andrew: Scoreboards. Mitchell, SD

Heidi: Pizza Hut, Sheridan, WY

5. Least Favorite thing:

Heath: The car

Erin: Corn Palace

Mike: The staff at Cedar Pass lodge

Andrew: Peeing his pants laughing from Mad Libs

Heidi: Heath using the word dying a lot in Mad Libs.

Home!!:

What a trip! 16 days, 14 states and 4043 miles. And we all made it back alive! 

It may be the euphoria of being home but I have actually loved blogging this adventure. To all those who have commented - you have added a great element of joy to this exercise and I thank you. You made the bad days bearable and the great days even better. 

Homeward bound!

We are just waiting on Heath to heat up two day old Buffalo wings for breakfast. That should be fun for the rest of us in the car.

Day 15

We had a very relaxing day in Ohio before our final push home tomorrow. 

This is how Andrew likes to start his day now:

This post is mainly a lot of family photos and a view into why my grandmother's house is everyone's favorite place: 

 

Klondike bars on the porch at 10am:

At the playground: Even Heath is really smiling!

Eating fried Oreos at lunch: They were delicious! 

Walking to the carousel in Mansfield:

The carousel: They rode this about 200 times.

I also found this guy, who clearly hadn't had enough of sitting in a moving object:

We spent the rest of the day back at the house. My aunt Loretta joined us from Akron:

Life in the backyard:

Again no surprises here:

Or here:

The weaponry came with the neighbor's kids, who like all children who have ever lived near my Granny's house, tend to spend a lot of time visiting.

Negotiating for more Klondike bars:

My Granny is the best! 

I can't believe we are going to be back in our home tomorrow for the first time in 13.5 months! 

Day 14

This was a four state day! Despite all the odds we made it all the way to Marion, Ohio. A nine hour drive and well past our goal of Fort Wayne, Indiana.

There really isn't a lot to show for all that travel. 

Things have degenerated so much that we have taken a shift approach to the backseat:

Heath's turn:

Mike's turn, is he about to cry?

I was back there too but no one dared capture it on camera.

Despite the hardship, we hit some major milestones today:

We crossed from Wisconsin to Illiinois:

Then to Indiana: Where we entered the eastern time zone about a third of the way across the state!

And finally into Ohio:

We also hit the 3,000 mile mark for the trip:

We started our day with a lot of this:

And ended with a lot of this:

So that's basically six states where I have very little to show but photos of corn fields. Just in case you were wondering why we have high fructose corn syrup in everything. 

We ate two of three meals in the car again. It's disgusting. I can't even think about it, let alone post photographic evidence.

But when this is all you see for hours on end you just want to power on through.

We made the decision around 5pm that we had enough Mad Libs and Roald Dahl stories to get us through another 3 hours to go all the way to Ohio. That way we would not have to drive tomorrow and could spend the whole day with my grandmother and stay in the same hotel for two nights. I think we are happy with this decision. I'll let you know tomorrow.

What I have found truly amazing is the relationship between the length of the drive and how often the kids have to pee. This is not a direct relationship, it is exponential. If we have a 4 hour drive they have to pee every 90 mins but on a 9 hour trip it is literally every 20 mins. I have tried a car rule that everyone must go to the bathroom at our planned stops and today I even put a moratorium on liquids for the last two hours but it does no good.

If anyone has a good solution to this issue that does not involve diapers (which was mulled very seriously today) I would be willing to hear it.

We spend tomorrow with my grandmother and then will drive the rest of the way back to New York on Thursday. To say we are ready to be home is a gross understatement.

It may be easier just to burn this car when we get home.

Day 13

We are now in Wisconsin and only a few

days away from the end of our trip. 

We finished our drive through Minnesota stopping only to see the Jolly Green Giant in Blue Earth, which is also the town at the half way point of I-90:

We also passed through the Minnesota Memorial Hardwood State Forest:

We seem to have reached the point where we are eating most our meals in the car and giving up any pretense of civilized behavior. For example, this is how the back of our car behaves if we are stopped for more than 20 seconds:

After lunch we arrived in rainy Wisconsin Dells but we were saved by the fact that they do have an indoor water park - Chula Vista, where we spent the next FOUR hours:

Let me just say that if you are doing a two plus week car trip with three kids, then taking half a day to let them go nuts at a water park is invaluable. I am pretty sure that this was the highlight of the entire trip for all of them and maybe also for Mike, who basically turned into my fourth kid while we were there.

Not suprisingly everyone was famished afterwards. We got dinner in town and then dessert: 

For some reason I agreed that we should stop at an arcade on our way home. This was not my wisest of moves but the kids had a great time:

This is Heath on the gyro ride where I had to look away because I thought I would vomit but he was laughing the whole time:

Tomorrow we drive as far as we can to Ohio. Yet, to draw another comparison to the Corps of Discovery (in 1805) it is becoming clear to me that this journey cannot be done in the time we had hoped for and so we have set our sights on Fort Wayne, Indiana for our final destination tomorrow and will make it to Ohio on Wednesday morning. 

 

Great day for a waterpark!

Day 12

Well we are in glorious Minnesota! It was a long driving day but we are slowly but surely getting there. We had a really great start in the Badlands, Mike and I both got to run and then we did a geology walk at the upper prairie:

Our kids were having none of it and Heath opted to sleep in but we did get to see some more amazing views and learn something about how the structures came about. I am sorry for so many photos but I really cannot get over the beauty of this place:

Badlands National Park is also the last open hike National Park in the United States, as in it never closes and you can go anywhere anytime in it. They have a ton of Ranger programs; the night sky and fossil programs they did last night were pretty spectacular, after which we sat outside our cabin and stargazed. I love this place.

We started our drive mid-morning and crossed the Missouri River:

We then took a stop in Mitchell, South Dakota to see the Corn Palace. I'd like to think of the Badlands as the thing I was most excited about on this trip and it far exceeded my expectations, and the Corn Palace was not even on my agenda except people kept saying "Oh you must see the Corn Palace." To those people I say "YOU OWE ME AN HOUR OF MY LIFE BACK!"

Here it is in all its splendor (the construction did not help):

Heidi and Andrew are still wondering why there was no princess if it was meant to be a palace.

After eating the worst corn on the cob at the corn palace, we had lunch across the road, which given its proximity to this tourist trap was actually pretty good. As you can we are all on the beige-only diet:

Here are the kids on Day 12! Look, Andrew is still smiling! How is that even possible?:

This is our entry into Minnesota (OK OK, this is our second entry into Minnesota, I totally messed up the first but even I am not perfect):

This is what Minnesota looks like so far:

We took a detour into Iowa because two people in the car whose names rhyme with Rike and Teath had never been and insisted we stop in that state. Here is our entry into Iowa:

This is what Iowa looks like: Totally worth it.

We played a lot of Mad Libs on this drive. The use of bathroom words and private parts was prolific but also hysterical. We have spent way too much time together.

Tonight Heath and I went out for pizza while Mike and and the kids did this:

Tomorrow we have a much shorter drive to Wisconsin Dells so we can spend the afternoon at the water park and wear the kids out for our planned mammoth drive on Tuesday.