On the road

This morning we left for our drive to Iowa. Yes, we're driving to Iowa. It's going to be a long few days but I think we're up to the challenge. And to be honest, we're only going to Madison, WI before we stop for a few nights. Today we're driving as far as Youngstown, OH and then tomorrow night we'll be at Rachel's house in Madison. We're staying with Rachel and Kevin in Madison until Sunday when we head over to Decorah to meet up with Mom and Dad. After a few days in Decorah we'll pack up on Wednesday morning and head up to my aunt and uncle's house on Lake Mille Lacs in Minnesota. We're spending two nights there before we head back down to Decorah on Friday morning to hand off Hannah for her three week trip with Grandma and Grandpa. Friday evening we'll head back over to Madison for the night before starting the long trip home again next weekend. The four longest days (two out and two back) will be about 12 hours each.

Last night we got the car packed up (more on that in another post) and cleaned the house. My friend Tracy will be housesitting for us while we're gone so not only did we have to get packed last night but we had to clean the bathrooms, vacuum the house, and change the sheets. When we were packing up the car last night we let Jake play in the front seat and he entertained himself rolling the windows up and down and opening the sunroof. Of course that meant the key had to be in the ignition and of course we forgot to turn it off last night so when we came out at 5:15 a.m. this morning we discovered the passenger side window down, the sunroof open, the keys in the ignition, and, of course, a dead battery. That threw a little bit of a kink in our schedule for this morning but we ended up leaving at 6:22 a.m. instead of our scheduled 6:00 a.m. and I can certainly live with that.

The car is fully loaded with toys, games, a DS Nintendo, two DVD players and plenty of books. Hopefully that should keep all of us entertained as we drive halfway across the country over the next two days. Hannah is happily watching a movie right now and Jake started out with the DS but said "I'm bored with this" before we even got to the end of our street. I also asked him if he wanted to take a pillow in the car and he thought about it very seriously for a few seconds and then said "Nahhh.....I don't think I'm going to sleep." He truly has no concept of how long we're going to be in the car. The other nice thing we have with us is Lincoln's laptop. Right now we're cruising down I-84 through Connecticut and I have the laptop booted up in my lap with a Verizon Wireless card plugged into the side. Of course what this means for everyone who reads this blog is that you'll be getting LOTS of updates over the next few days as we head westward. After breakfast today I'll try to load some pictures and video that I took earlier this morning.