Oh, the Humidity!

Well, last night was far more eventful than we planned!  The kids fell asleep as we had hoped, Levi in Trista’s bed and Trista in Levi’s.  John and I continued, and I vaguely remember pulling into a gas station and then I conked out.  I woke up over an hour later, somewhat disoriented from my involuntary nap, apparently as we were just leaving said truck stop.  John had filled the gas tank, emptied the black and grey tanks, filled the water tank and I looked over to see him with a large soda and a pile of candy bars on his snack table. (John doesn’t have much of a sweet tooth, so this was kind of funny).  We drove a bit more and finally found a rest area.  We previously discovered that Illinois and Indiana are not very accommodating for overnight stays in parking lots, which is why we were aiming for a place we found in Gary, but we were far short of that and tired.  Illinois allegedly has a 3-hour rest area limit, so we pulled in and figured we would start with that and go from there.  As we pulled in, there was a sign that said, “After 11 hours driving, you must have 10 hours of rest.” HA! But nothing about no overnight parking or anything about a 3-hour limit.  We pulled in at 1 am next to a truck running a VERY LOUD APU or generator, (neither of us really know what they are called on big rigs).  It took a couple of minutes for us to try and fall asleep and before I knew it, Trista had joined us in our bed (which is a bit small anyway, but with the slide in, it feels even smaller).  Not long after that, Levi joined us.  We all moved around to fit and then Levi started complaining that his ear hurt.  John was quicker to wake up enough to see what was wrong and asked me if we had any children’s Tylenol or anything.  Of course not.  I thought about it, I really did.  None of my children have ever had an ear infection and they rarely ever get sick.  The times that I have brought tummy sickness type medicine, they have gotten colds and vice versa, so I figured if something comes up, we can get what we along the way.  My sister-in-law was very supportive as we prepared for this trip and kept reminding me, “There are stores everywhere you are going.  You are not going to Africa!”  Anyway, John tried to lay with Levi on the couch for a while and he just kept crying about his ear.  Finally, he brought Levi back to me and said, “We’re going!” 

I said, “What?!  Where?!”

“Toward a town!”

“It is 230 in the morning.  What do you think you are going to find?”

“I got to get something, he is miserable.”

And off we went.  The kids and I were all cuddled up in bed and John drove until he found a Walmart, but by the time he returned with the Tylenol, Levi was fast asleep.  When I checked earlier, all of the Walmarts in Illinois said, ‘No overnight parking.’ So, I asked him, “What are we going to do now?”

“Pull in next to all of these other RVs that aren’t parking overnight and go to sleep!”

Through all of this, the kids ended up with both our bed and our pillows and their throw blankets, leaving John on the couch and me on the dinette (oh that is miserable) and we slept for a few hours.  I finally woke up at 545 and though it was still dark, I decided that I really didn’t want to spend one more minute sleeping on the kitchen table and I really wanted to make Pennsylvania by dinner time, so I jumped into the driver’s seat and started driving. 

The sunrise was so beautiful this morning, it is foggy and hazy, and the sun came up as a bright red ball in the sky, there was lots of ground fog in the valleys and it was peaceful and gorgeous.  Not much traffic on the roads.  I just love the beauty of God’s creation and seeing all that this great land has to offer!

Slowly, all of my family woke up and we made a stop for breakfast. (I missed the place that I was supposed to turn to pull through and had to BACK Romeo Victor into a parking spot – SUCCESS!)  The first thing we noticed when we got out was the humidity!  I do not like heat and I especially do not like humidity, I am very ready to take a shower!  John went into the travel center and found a Starbucks (Hallelujah! – For those keeping track, this coffee addict gave up coffee in March and this is my 4^th cup of coffee since March 15.  Well-deserved and much appreciated!) Added bonus, John got little cups of whipped cream for the kids and the barista asked if they were for dogs or kids and then wrote their names and a sweet little message on their cups.  However, I’m the one that got no sleep and knocked out a bunch of driving this morning, made breakfast and pre-made lunch before 9am and my cup just says, ‘John’!

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We are back on the road, realizing just how close we were to Michigan (one of the states I have never been to) and how eager we are to fill in the map on the back, we took a detour so that we could add Michigan to our list.  Sadly, even though I snapped about 4 pictures of the ‘Welcome to Michigan’ sign, they were all completely blurry.  So, when we knew we were going to be passing it from the other direction, I went back and sat on the bed looking out the back.  I told Trista to relay anything that dad said to me.  John yelled, “It’s coming!”  Trista yelled, “It’s coming!” and I snapped a perfect picture of the Michigan sign out the back window.  Sometimes it’s the little things!  Yay, Team Carkeet!