East Coast Road Trip 2016 (part 1)

S u m m e r   vacay 

to V i r g i n i a! YAY!

via

Utah, Wyoming, Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine, Connecticut, New Jersey, Delaware and Maryland

(throw in West Virginia, Kentucky, and Missouri on the way back)...

21 states

6600+ miles 

And, oh yeah, we bought  a

M O T O R H O M E 

to take us there!

It was pretty much awesome.

And it pretty much went by waaaaay   tooooo  faaaaaast!

I wish we had taken a month.  Or even two months.

We left July 9th got back July 25th.  2 weeks and 2 days.

Our first stop - on Saturday night, the first night - was 

UTAH!

At Grammie and Grandad's house!

We LOOOOVE visiting there!

My brother Brian and his family were there visiting too.  We loved seeing this little nephew/cousin.

After one short night with them, we left and drove across long 

Wyoming, and into Nebraska where we stayed the night at a rest stop.  The motorhome was right between 2 semi's, and other semi's would stop right next to us all night long to run into the bathroom.  Needless to say I didn't sleep very well.  But I got excited when, in the middle of the night at that rest stop, and even through diesel fumes from the trucks, I could smell humidity!  It was like I could smell the ocean, even though we were the farthest we could get from it in the continental US.  But smelling that, I felt closer to home.

At 6 a.m. Weston woke up, walked from the bed to the driver's seat, opened the curtains, started her (Clementine) up, and started driving.  I joined him.  The kids slept for 2 more hours (benefit of having the motorhome).

I forgot how big the sun is on the horizon.  The sunrise in the middle of Nebraska was gorgeous.

It was so fun driving with the windows open, just he and I awake, and watching the now green and farm-y landscape.  

We were driving East!  Our destination for today, now Monday, was a tiny town in Illinois where one of my former BYUH college roommates lives with her family.  Only about 700 miles.

My amazing mother-in-law sent us with a box with a bunch of small gifts to open, one for each state we went into.  That was seriously so cool.  In Wyoming, I got my own gift: a cheery orange dish towel.  Some of the other gifts were a coloring book, crayons, construction paper, white paper, a book about animals, cookies, and this  history trivia game that was especially great when I was trying to keep Weston awake late on some of our traveling nights.

I haven't added up the number of hours that we were driving, and I don't really want to, but it was a whole lot.

We drove through Iowa with it's beautiful corn fields, green farms, and white winding gravel roads, and into Illinois and finally pulled up to Ranie and Burl's house at about 12:30 a.m.  It was so fun to see them the next morning, and hang out with them, and see their 100 year old farmhouse.  Their yard was so green!  I really love that natural green!

As roommates in Hawaii we were the only 2 (out of the 10 of us) that said "y'all".  She was from Arkansas and I was from Virginia, of course.  I felt a bond with her right off because of it.

Ranie is one of the most fun and sweetest people ever!  She can really make me laugh.  I love to laugh, but, honestly, there are not a lot of people who can make me genuinely laugh;  Like, a real, natural, can't-control-it, out loud laugh (that I remembered I'm not very good at doing anymore).  She can definitely make me do that.  She's good for my soul.  

And it's fun that Weston and Burl get along so well too.  She and her husband Burl have 4 cute kids.  This is her youngest Jesse, or "Messy" Jesse as she calls him.  

  

We have a few pictures of them all lined up like this from over the years.  We just keep having more kids.  We're missing her oldest from the picture, Gracie Belle, who is Kate's buddy.  

Isn't her house dreamy looking?

We left their house and headed toward Palmyra, New York, for the Hill Cumorah Pageant.  We didn't want to rush our time with Ranie's family, and knew we couldn't quite make it all the way to Palmyra that day, so I happily looked for a camping place along Lake Erie.  I was really hoping that it would work out that way.  

We drove through Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and we got to the campground just inside of western New York state at around midnight.  The next morning, after eating waffles, we told the kids we wanted to show them something.  When they first saw the lake, they thought we were at the ocean.  They couldn't wait to get out and run and play (some still in their nightgowns).

Lake Erie!

We tried to set the timer on the camera.  It turned out alright.  Spencer is a goof ball, though.

Serious memory making here, people.

And, by the way, it is so nice to have a hose on the outside of the motorhome to rinse sand off.

So long, beautiful Great Lake!

Now, off to Palmyra, where we'll reunite with some old friends!  Only a 2 hour drive today.  No big deal!