We did a quick auto tour of Hannibal, Missouri (where Mark Twain lived as a boy, along the Mississippi River). No one was interested in more sight-seeing by this last leg of our trip.
A statue of Tom and Huck in Hannibal
Driving past the St. Louis Temple, on the freeway (we lived here while this was being built)
This ritzy mall was walking distance from our house (1993-1997). I took Isaac, Eliza, and Madi here regularly when they were babies and toddlers to play in the big FAO Schwartz toy store. We also drove past the arch (below).
As we drove south, we were looking forward to getting home (and to a washing machine and a real bed) so we didn’t stop at all of the neat things we passed. In St. Louis, I showed Eliza and Madi the neighborhood they lived in for their first 2 ½ years of life (our actual duplex was torn down years ago to make way for big office buildings) and they were in awe. The area now has tons and tons of shopping. Really good shopping, the girls noticed. The girls kept suggesting that I take a nap in the car while they walk around the malls, but it was too hot to sleep in the car and I’ve had too many experiences of someone not coming when it’s time to leave a mall. So I declined that request. But then Eliza and Madi wanted to know everything I’d heard about East St. Louis (“Is it really unsafe?” “Is it one of the most dangerous cities in the country?”) and I didn’t know much about it (we avoided it when we lived in St. Louis) but I told them what I could remember hearing about it. They begged me to exit the freeway in East St. Louis, so I did, and then they kept wanting to go farther and farther. They were absolutely fascinated to just watch out of the windows as we drove along (with doors locked). I think it was their favorite place we visited between Utah and Florida. They could’ve stayed (driving) for hours.
We decided we’d eat dinner in Nashville, but somehow the driving always took longer than I estimated, so when we arrived in Nashville, it was after 11 p.m. and no one was awake to see it. And no one had an official dinner that night, either (though we always had plenty of snacks in the car). So instead we had a restaurant breakfast the next morning at a great southern restaurant: Cracker Barrel, in Alabama. I loved listening to my books on CD while driving for hours, and we listened to country music Isaac gave us and sang along when I needed to stay awake (my favorite was “Kneedeep”), and I snacked way too much when I needed to keep myself awake (better to be chubby and alive than skinny and dead, right?). Around 2 a.m. that night I pulled over and slept for a few hours, then later I took another power nap on the side of a road, but once the sun came up and we knew it was our final day of driving, it wasn’t so hard to stay awake til we arrived at our new house around 3 p.m. I took a nap while the (well-rested) children cleaned out the filthy car. Lyrad had unpacked in a lot of our stuff since he’d been here for 2 weeks, and he’d planted a garden and had the kitchen stocked with food. This is the best way to move into a house -- to just come after it’s unpacked and ready for living in!!! We were so grateful that we arrived safely after 90+ hours in the car that month, with NO car problems and NO health problems. We did have a few behavior problems at times, but we survived and we’re all glad we did it.
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