The epic trip to Texas

We have landed in El Paso, TX. The weather is a bit cooler than their norm, which means it is warm and perfect pool weather! The kids are swimming and I've had a nap, so we're ready for the rest of the day. Our trip here is story worthy, so let me see if I can remember it ll.
Did you ever have a day when nothing seemed to go as planned, but it turned out to be better, overall, than your original plan? That is a good summary of yesterday. I should have suspected we were in for a bit of a different day when the first unusual thing we saw was 4 hay bales, piled on top of each other, painted to look like Sponge-Bob Square Pants. That was a new one for me. Shortly afterward, we encountered a detour due to a closed road. What we didn't realize until afterward was that Kansas detours take you 15-20 miles out of the way, and are not well marked, so you are constantly wondering if you missed the turn. Then you remind yourself you haven't passed any turns yet so you couldn't possibly have missed one!
Next we followed our google directions to the Little House on the Prairie site in Independence, Kansas. While google may have given us the most direct route, it was unaware that it took us COMPLETELY down a dirt road with an obstacle course of tractor tire ruts at the end for some excitement. Needless to say, it took us some extra time. The absurdity of the whole situation climaxed as Jess and I asked ourselves what some poor farmer may have thought if he saw our mini-van with MA plates bouncing through the cornfields...this thought was followed by 5 minutes of laughter and tears! Oh my!
We finally found a main road and got to the house. It was a cute stop and the kids had fun. I was thankful I had a mini-van to cross the country with and not their covered wagon! After stretching our legs we got back on the road and headed to Claremore, OK to visit Lucy. We arrived HOURS after we had intended to leave. Jess and I decided it was useless to be in any kind of a hurry at that point, so we hung out with Lucy for quiet a while. She gave us the grand tour of the sheep farm she is working at, gave Micah some hands on experience in spinning wool to yarn and introduced us to all the barnyard animals. She was able to get some time off so she accompanied us to Tulsa, OK for dinner at the Olive Garden. At the end of our dinner time, Cory Strnad joined us and everyone had a good time catching up.
At 9pm-ish we pointed the car south and began our drive through OK. Being behind, but so grateful and at peace with all time spent visiting friends, we opted to head straight for El Paso, TX and not stop in Waco. I was sad to not spend time with the Lockes, but we had a 14 hour drive ahead of us and chose to drive round the clock to get in to El Paso as early as possible. Jess and I drove in shifts and we only stopped for both of us to sleep at a rest stop from 5:30am-7:00am. We pulled into to Mariwyn's drive at 11:30am. Despite the sleepyness, I did really appreciate the beauty of the landscape here. It is teh most unique scenery we have seen thus far. And it is amazingly beautiful.
Today we have napped, the kids have swam, we had fantastic Mexican food for dinner, got a tour of downtown El Paso and are relaxing in the backyard. During the tour, we saw Tres Puntos, the mountain at which Mexico, Texas and New Mexico touch. We also observed the contrast of El Paso next to Juarez, Mexico. As we drove along, literally just across the fence we were looking into Mexico. It was quite the stark contrast of American and Mexican. Tonight we will relax, regroup a bit, and sleep. Tomorrow we head out between 9-10am to pick up Stefan at the Phoenix airport!

Blessings till tomorrow!
Cami Foerster

Getting ready for Texas

Good morning. We have had a fantastic time here is Texas. It was a welcomed stop along the way. After a looooong drive of 700 miles on Tuesday it was nice to have a day not in the car. Although the kids did great and didn't melt down until about hour 11 in car, the change of pace has been well-timed.

Along the drive on Tuesday some things I saw for the first time were: a truck pulling a trailer of buffalo along the highway (in TN); The St. Louis Arch...quite a site; the Kansas City Royals staduim.

Yesterday we regrouped and played. I unpacked the car, washed everything that needed to be washed, and repacked it. We also went swimming in a friend's pool and went to a park that reminded us that Kansas was the staging area for many of the wagon trains heading west to places like CA. Lacey Palmer (a student at Gordon) came by to say hello and I giggled as i saw her hometown / high school world collide with her Gordon College world as she greeted Jess and I at the home of her high school math teacher. Her face was priceless! I also was able to give to Pam a cross-stictch I had started 12 years ago for her wedding. It was completed Tuesday along the drive and was one of my favorites to do. We had a good laugh about how long it took me to complete it.

Today we have another long drive, although the car will not feel as cluttered and we are looking forward to some stops. We will go from here to Waco Texas - 600+ miles. We will stop at the homestead of the Wilders from Little House on the Prairie in Independence, KS and also visit Lucy Pleticha, another Gordon friend, who lives in Oklahoma. If I have a chance, I will post some pictures tomorrow.

Hope you are enjoying the journey with us! We are off to Texas!

Blessings!
Cami

Mandy's Blog update from Kansas

Well, having fun here in Kansas, allthough missing friends in Mass and other East Coast friends. So far We've been through CT, NY, NJ,PA, DE, MD, D.C., VA, NC, GA, TN, KY, IL, MO, and KS. Right now it is Wednesday, June 30,2010 at 9:35-9:  . We (Jess Hansmeier, Mom, Micah, and I) are staying at our friends the Alexanders' house. They have two children named Sophia (age 7) and Jordan (age 9). As you might have guessed, I hang out with Sophia and Micah hangs out with Jordan. Well, it is time to finally give myself to sleepiness, sleep, and the night. Updaiting soon!

From Lookout Mountain, Georgia!

Hello all!
It is late and I am tired but I wanted to post at least a little before bed. I'll try to do more on Wednesday when we spend a whole day without traveling.
Anyway today was an 8 hour trip from North Carolina to Georgia via Tennessee. It was our most beautiful drive yet! The Smokey Mountains are stunning. I always knew I was a mountain girl, but when I saw mountains on the horizon of NC - I felt joy. It was amazing. Another highlight for me was that we did not watch a movie at all today in the car. Books on ipod and card games were the theme for the drive. It was fantastic. The only hitch was...we had our first "getting sick" episode today. Poor Micah had a sore throat which ended up in me holding my cupped hands full of puke while we scrambled for plastic bags and got off at the first gas station. So out of the blue, so random. But all is well in the end.
At the end of the day I asked my kids what they saw today that they had never seen before. Micah replied, "A huge cross." (There was a church along the highway that had the biggest cross I had ever seen!) Mandy and I both talked about "Crazy Ed's" which had this sign outside...

the things you see from the road!
Anyway, I'll leave you with some photos from today's trip...and I'll update again on Wednesday. Tomorrow we have a 12+ hour drive from Georgia to Kansas. Here's hoping for smooth sailing!
Blessings,
Cami

 

 

 

North Carolina

Yesterday was warm (98), but beautiful!
Rachel was a beautiful bride! We slept in a bit and then realized the wedding venue was 45 minutes away. We stepped it up a bit and got on the road to the wedding. It was a fantastic beach-side wedding with an intimate gathering of friends and family. The wedding and reception were at the same place, so we watch the wedding from the deck of a house and then walked in through the slider door to the reception. The food and people were great. And Rachel was so happy.
We took Stefan to the airport by 7pm and headed to Barrett's home in Apex, NC. The drive was fine... we finished Kung Foo Panda and listened to some more of Harry Potter. It was a short drive today...only 4 hours.
Some of the highlights: on the way to the wedding, we passed a pond, lined with purple flowers and filled with beautiful lotus blossoms. Also, at the beach, Micah saw a baby shark (it was dead) that had washed up onto the sand. It was about 1 1/2 feet long. Also, I was mesmerized by a pod of dolphins feeding on a school of fish just off the shoreline. It was a fantastic sight. I could have watched for hours.
It was a good day. Today we are heading to Covenant College at Lookout Mountain, GA to stay with my friend Abby. It should be 7 1/2 hours of driving with a few stops along the way.
Blessings till later!
Cami

We made it to Virginia!

If anyone is wondering,...it is a very long drive from Wenham, MA to Norfolk, VA via Washington DC. We left Saturday morning on time for us...which is an hour late of ideal. By 7am we were packed into the car (quite literally *packed* in the car) and heading south. We made it through NY traffic before lunch and our first stop to stretch our legs was at the Vince Lombardi rest stop off the New Jersey turnpike. It's just a rest stop...nothin' fancy. Anyway. After a little recharge, and a few laughs we got back on the road and made it to Washington DC by 5pm and met Stephanie for a great, leisurely dinner followed by frozen yogurt. Delicious! She gave us the quick driving tour of "the mall" and we saw in less than an hour: the white house, the capital, the supreme court, memorials to Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln, the WW2 memorial and many of the Smithsonian museums. How amazing! Sometime after 7pm we headed into Virginia for the final push. We arrived in Norfolk around 11pm and settled in for the night. Sleep came around 12:30 - 1am.
The good and the hard: The car was FULL so each stop we played musical chairs to change things up. The back seats watched Miss Congeniality and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. We listened to country music at times and listened to Harry Potter: The Order of the Phoenix chapters 1-3. I only had to pull the mom, "Don't make me stop the car" line once. I remember noticing the purple flowers along Route 15 in Connecticut and how all of highway 95 is lined by trees so MA looks pretty much the same as VA except if you look closely...the trees are different. The moon rising over the trees in VA last night was beautiful. And at the end of a long trip, it is nice to be welcomed to smiles and the warm huge of friends that you wish you could see more often. I experienced laughing so hard i was crying (not recommended while driving!) as well as watching by daughter be so exhausted she couldn't bring herself to leave the car last night when we finally arrived. I think I will learn a lot about myself and my kids during this trip.
I'll be back tomorrow. Today, we slept in, and now have a beach-side wedding to look forward to. We'll say good-bye to Stefan tonight as he flies back to Boston, and we'll be sleeping in Apex, NC if all goes according to plan.

The Eve before the Trip

The car is almost packed, and we are striving to remember everything that we are tempted to forget before we take a long nap and begin to drive across the United States tomorrow morning. The thought of living in my beloved little van for the next 12 days is both exciting and daunting. I am looking forward to seeing the country change before my eyes as we travel state by state. I am eager to see friends that now live scattered throughout the US. I am cautiously hopeful that we will become closer as a family and really enjoy one another along the way. I am also curious about what unexpected events will crop up along our trip.
We, as a family, will do our best to post daily throughout our trip and hopefully provide each one of you who are interested a glimpse into the story we will be living out through the next few days. We will post pictures when possible and try to faithfully record the highlights and trials...because they will all become part of the story. We are thankful you are tagging along with us for this trip. And hopefully we will see a few of you along the way.
Our stopping point tomorrow is Norfolk, VA. The car will be pack with gear, games and 6 warm bodies: Cami, Stefan, Jess, Barrett, Mandy and Micah. We pile in at 6:00am in an attempt at an early start. We will visit with a good friend of mine, Steph, in Washington DC to stretch our legs a bit. Then we continue on to VA to celebrate with Rachel and Steve at their beach wedding Sunday afternoon.
Blessings till the next post!
Cami