That's where we are right now. It's been a good day!

The kids were up bright and early this morning, so even though I was up 'til nearly 2:00am last night I was up and at 'em before 7:00. That's good though. It made for a much earlier departure time than I would have guessed! I was able to get all of the beds made and empty the dishwasher and a few other last minute things. Loaded up the van, watched James make his rounds, and we were all ready to go just after 8:00! Katie and I took a minute to scribble a note to Eric since we didn't get a chance to tell him goodbye after all. We went and taped it to the fence where Katie is usually waiting for him. :-)

The kids have had a pretty good traveling day today. Joe has already burned through all of his library books. He had finished his Harry, the Poisonous Centipede (150 pages) by about 1:00. Katie finished up Ralph S. Mouse today, the third in The Mouse and the Motorcycle series that I read when I was a kid. It just amazes me. These kids are 6 and 7 years old and I'm sure they've done more reading than I had done when I was twice their age! They just love it. Then there's Sam. He's still working on learning his letters, so reading is still way out there. He'll scan through the pictures in a Ranger Rick magazine or something, but it doesn't take long before he's ready for some action. Action is hard to come by when you're strapped into a van, so Sam opts for the sport of pestering. If there were such a thing as going pro with that, he could do it. He comes up with more ways to harass is siblings--especially Joe--than you could shake a stick at. (Where did that "shake a stick" saying originate?!) He can find the tiniest little things that happen to be the biggest annoyances to specific people. He is well aware of Joe's "sensitivity" to Spanish (Joe has real issues with people using languages that he can't understand), so Sam chose to sing in Spanish for quite some time today. Of course, he doesn't know Spanish so he just makes it up as he goes. It's all the same to Joe and it makes him sooooooo mad! What's a Mom supposed to do? Joe has a ridiculous "issue" with something that he has GOT to get over (especially in a region like ours, when half of your church folks are Spanish! Ha!); but Sam is just being a jerk. Sometimes I just let 'em go at it for a while to see how things will turn out. Before it was all said and done Sam was telling Joe to PAY him or else he'd keep singing in Spanish. Joe didn't go for that. Right away, that is. Within a few minutes I looked in the back seat and saw him digging frantically through his wallet trying to get the bribe money necessary to stop the "Spanish" serenade! Ha! I was going to put a stop to things, but I didn't have to. Joe offered Sam a whole dollar to quit it, but Sam was settling for nothing less than "a million-kazillion dollars!" I finally told Sam it was time to stop tormenting his brother--no more Spanish. "Mom?," he said after a minute, "Can I sing in French?" Ha! That kid is such a rat! I told him that all foreign languages were off limits the rest of the day. "Except English?" "Right." :-)

There is one really, really bad thing about living in the mountains where we currently live. It's going to make these trips back east soooooo much worse! When we lived in Texas we were already sweltering in the summer heat and so these trips just upped the humidity, but that was about it. But we've had weather in the 70's and 80's up at our house and nice, cool afternoon rainstorms and things like that. At our first stop today (Amarillo, Texas, for lunch) I thought I was going to die! (I know, it's pitiful!) And it's only gotten worse. Much, much worse. Outside right now it feels soooooooo hot and HEAVY. The air here just feels so heavy and muggy, like you have to kind of swim through it. Bleagh. And that's not all...

We drove through a town with a population of over 82,000... and missed it. The whole town--we missed it! Never saw it!!! Our goal today was to make it across the Arkansas border. The first town is pretty substantial: Ft. Smith, Arkansas--that was our goal. We never saw it. Out west there is no way you could pass a town and not see it, especially one that big! But we never saw anything but trees, trees, and more trees. No indication of civilization whatsoever. All we can figure is that we must've been passing a big truck when passed the exit and weren't able to see it. Who knows. It was after 8:00 and we were ready to stop for the night. Not only that, but we hadn't had dinner yet.

The next place was a little town called Alma. We stopped to check prices at a couple motels and to see if they accept pets. (Here goes Hershey, adding extra spice to our lives again!) I checked one motel, but it was a little high and didn't look the greatest. We decided to check the Days Inn. It was the worst looking Days Inn I've ever seen. The paint was peeling off of the siding everywhere. --Everywhere where the siding itself was still attached, that is. (For real!) Most of the air conditioners looked like they'd been bashed in with a baseball bad. James was about to drive on, but I made him stop. "Let me check here--maybe they'll be CHEAP!" I walked into the lobby and asked about their rates. *KA-ZAP* The electricity went out. I asked her if it was any cheaper to say there when there was no electricity. She had the gall to quote me a price of $58--plus $10 for the dog!!! WITH NO ELECTRICITY! I kind of giggled and said thanks, then bumbled my way out of the blackened building. Some people are nuts. Come to find out the entire TOWN had lost electricity. Everything was dark as far as the eye could see, even the traffic lights. We thought it best to just keep moving on. ;-)

The next sign we saw was for a little town called Ozark, so that's where we landed. We're at a very, very nice Days Inn here--doesn't even look like it could be related to the first one. It's pricier than what we like to pay, but James was able to talk the lady down $10. She still charged him a $10 pet fee, but every little bit helps. It's right next to a Taco Bell so we had a quick bite for dinner, moved in, got everybody into their pj's and watched a few minutes of some idiots doing the high jump on motorcycles. I'm sure they have some clever name for it, but that's exactly what it was. Idiots flying wa-a-a-a-a-a-ay up in the sky on their dirt bikes, hovering over a bar, then come crashing back down (literally somtimes) on the other side. Dumb. The kids liked it though. It was slim pickin's on the TV tonight. James went to take a bath, the kids and Hersh are all a-snooze in the nice, cushy queen size bed next to me, and I'm blogging. But I'm done now. I think maybe I'll play a computer game or something. :-) We should make it to Mom & Dad's house at a decent hour tomorrow, if all goes well. Wa-Hoo!!!