So where am I supposed to sleep?? grrrr. I ended up spending most of the night sleeping halfway down the bed in an "L" shape with my legs across the foot of the bed. At one point I flipped around and put put my head at the foot of the bed and slept that way. Ben woke up a few times, slid over and pulled Maddox over so I could have more room and move up to where you're supposed to sleep on a bed, but it didn't last long. Soon the child and husband had pushed me over again. I cannot wait to get home and sleep where I can hog the bed with my body pillow and no toddler.
I was up around 6am with sore hips and back, took a lengthy shower, and headed to the lobby by myself to get breakfast. When I got back Ben and the kids were awake and starting their showers. Morgan put his Red Sox jersey on for the third day in a row (which, of course, Ben had no problem with) and Susan put on the new necklace and earrings she picked out.
We checked out around 10am and piled in the car, which was literally packed to the brim. We thought we were crammed before...now add 2 more kids, their luggage, and all the stuff we got for them...yikes. My knees were at the dashboard, the kids had their bags either in their laps or under their feet, and the dogs were sitting on top of each other.
As we were driving, Ben made a right hand turn and we heard Susan yelling at Tiny from the back seat. He was trying to jump from the cargo area into the kids' laps. We yelled at him to stay back there, that's the last thing we need. Morgan looked in the cargo space and informed us that we had an avalanche. The pack-n-play and some other things had fallen over into the "dog space" and they were squashed again. Hank just layed there under it while Tiny jumped on top and finally found a satisfactory place to sit. We weren't planning on spending much time in the car so they would be fine until we got to our destination.
We had planned to spend the day at the Clarksville Dog Park and have a picnic lunch, but the threat of rain made me nervous. Morgan said they were building a new park in Clarksville and pointed it out on our left. As we drove past it we realized that "new" park was the dog park. It was completely bulldozed over, reduced to nothing but dirt and rock. Why would they do that? It was the only dog park in town. Then we remembered the flood from earlier this year. It had probably been damaged since it sat on the river and had to be rebuilt. We were at a loss at first, but quickly we came up with Plan B.
We went to another park in Clarksville, not a dog park, but it had walking trails we could go to. The kids had fun walking the dogs down the trails and playing on the playground.
When they got bored we left and drove through the rich neighborhoods, picking out the houses we would buy if we won the lottery.
Around 2pm we headed to Sonic for some half price drinks. We were going to go back to the park since the dogs were really smelly and we were all cramped in the car, but dark clouds rolled in and the rain was sure to start any minute. We decided to head south, toward the kids house, and try a park down there, hoping the weather would be better.
It was much better, so we drank our drinks and played on the playground.
After that we went to dinner and dropped the kids at their house.
Susan always has to have at least one major mis-hap during our visits, so I wasn't surprised that she spilled her 3/4 full Sonic drink all over the floor of the car and Morgan's new Red Sox backpack we bought him when she tried to get out of the car. That girl.
We gave the kids hugs and kisses, told them we'd miss them, and headed towards Fort Leonard Wood. The GPS was saying we'd be there around 12:30 am. On the way up there was saw a Bald Eagle flying low over the freeway. Ben pointed it out and shouted "Bald Eagle!" I didn't believe him, but as I looked up you could see it clear as day. What an amazing sight, to see one in the wild.
We got home around the time the GPS had originally said and went straight to bed. We have put a grand total of 4,315 miles on the car and spent 87.35 hours in the car getting an average of 24.1mpg! Wow, that was a long time!
Maddox is now a well traveled toddler, going through 11 states: Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont, Kentucky, and Tennessee.
I hope Ben enjoyed his trip, since this was his vacation, but I am sure glad it's over. All I can say is: thank God for portable DVD players and headphones...we would have been lost without them.
I have a lot more pictures and will be posting them on facebook and my walmart account soon (they take a long time to load on here for some reason.)
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