The temperature in Wisconsin right now is 51. I turned my heater on for the night. *insert me crying uncontrollably* ;) St Petersburg, FL 'feels like' 92 right now... at 11:22pm. I'm a little bitter about Wisconsin at the moment...
We left Florida on Monday after being there since the Friday before. The highs while we were there were in the mid to high 90s. Writing this post is making me miss Florida SO bad... who am I kidding... every time I think about the wonderfulness that was Florida is making me miss being there. We had *such* a great time! So I'll rewind a bit...
Because one of my strongest characteristics is procrastination, I thought about packing for at least 2 weeks before our trip...and then packed the day before we left. All day! I'll give myself a little credit. I had all the laundry in the entire house caught up for those 2 weeks in preparation for the packing that would ensue to make things a little easier on myself. Packing for 9 is quite a task, but way easier to pack summer clothes. After only a couple trips for multiple nights, I have this packing thing down to a science.
And then I had to pack/organize/clean out my purse for the trip as well. Made for a pretty photo op, although the 'stuff' in my purse isn't nearly as fun as some purses I've seen.
Yes, that's a dinosaur on the far right...
Dave took the day off Wednesday (I almost cried when he told me this... so nice), and we spent the entire day organizing luggage, dividing goodies for each van (we borrowed 2, one from our wonderful neighbor/Dave's aunt and the other from Dave's mother... thank you BOTH so much!), packing coolers, and making sure we weren't forgetting anything.
Drew testing the headphones for movies - these were magical!
some excited more than others for the next 17hr drive
Nash starting to lose the battle
Forgive me for the abundance of scenery photos, and I apologize for not remembering what cities these were, but I love the landscape of large cities. Just something about them!
The fog Thursday morning bright and early was eerie yet beautiful. Hard to capture a good photo in a moving vehicle, but I did my best.
After the trip up this mountain pass and then back down through the fog, there was some sort of accident on the freeway. A nitrogen tank truck overturned causing a massive back up. And of course, with no gas stations or rest areas in the near future, Nash had to potty. Immediately. We winged it. Ended up at this grocery store somewhere... miles off the freeway... in Tennessee, I believe. The woman probably thought we were the oddest foreigners she had ever seen... and the feeling was mutual... I'm not sure she had ever used the restroom she sent us to... 'take a left. a right. and then another left.' What she failed to mention was the 'duck your head' and 'you'll be almost out the back door' to find this place... I'm blaming Casey for not taking her phone in to take a photo of this place. She always has her phone! Would have made for a better story ;)
see all the way up there...still backed up
our view for awhile (1 mile in 15 minutes)
The first drive through the night was a little rough. Dave and I both stayed awake. Dave driving. Me quizzing him with Tommy Boy trivia and anything NFL related. Let me just tell you, I now know a little more than I wanted to know about both of those topics. I also came to know my husband is quite knowledgeable in NFL facts. Rather ridiculous actually and ultimately quite impressive!
We came to realize driving during the day is a bit easier than through the middle of the night. A full night of sleep makes day driving even easier. Unfortunately, the closer we got to our stop in Georgia for the day (and pool) :) and a full nights rest, the more tired we got. Here's where I'm going to break for now. Between my camera and my phone, I took well over 400 photos... oops! So to save you a night of reading, I'm going to break it up into a few posts. The better photos are coming, I promise! ;)
