Lincoln, NE

August 8, 2017

Weather: 74 and sunny driving through Wyoming, 70s Nebraska

Hours Driving: 12 hours

States Drive Thru: Utah and Wyoming and Nebraska

Miles: 860 miles

Restaurants: Tasty BBQ

Movies:

Games:

Books: Dunkirk (Matt), Bow Wow (Bee), Woof (Ben)

Hotel: Fairfiedld inn

As we make our way home from Utah, we climb mountain roads and descend into valleys. The landscape changes at every curve causing me to wonder why it is so different yet so close together. Green jagged mountains, strange hill-like mountains with little vegetation, mounds of sandcastle-like formations, piles of broken rock, red rock, layered rock as if we are driving through a dried up ocean floor and rock that makes you wonder how it came to be the odd shape or formation balancing on the precipice of crushing our car. Then, flatlands of gold and rolling hills of green to farmland with grazing cattle and the occasion prancing of antelope so well disguised in the brown grass. I feel blessed to be able to travel to these places and in between. I'm glad to say that "I've been there." This may be one of the greatest decisions Paul and I made for our family. Our kids truly love it and never complain about the driving or being away from home or being together. Do they fight? Do we fight? Oh yeah. All out brawls. Do we annoy each other. Oh yeah. But it's learning how to deal with it. These are learning experiences.

What makes us very happy is to see Ben and Elizabeth and Matthew spend all these hours together playing, talking and bonding (and fighting). They are learning how to be with their boyfriends and girlfriends and husbands and wives someday. When we arrived at the condo in Utah, the kids had a loft though we had one extra bedroom which I thought Elizabeth would take. The minute the boys saw the loft with three beds, they said to Elizabeth, "you have to sleep up here with us!" She did not refuse their invitation. Love it.

Our trip has been blessed again. Our weather as usual has been great. We have been driving in sunny skies. Even the hot weather was only one day and we were able to go to the ocean and avoid it. The only rain we've had was yesterday in Park City which was only short rain clouds (kind of like in Hawaii). Everyone loved our planned hotels and rentals which exceeded our expectations and they loved all the planned and unplanned activities. This makes me happy since i spend months planning and researching our routes. I love doing it. Paul thinks I should do it for other people and charge them. I don't know if people would want that. I think its fun. I personalized a trip for some friends from Seattle to San Diego for a 21 day trip. I found multiple hotels in each location to choose from and activities all along the way. They had a great time. I want to take that trip..

Today we are heading for Cheyenne to see the capital and have dinner. We like to see the capital at as many locations as we can. Then we plan to drive a little further toward home.

We stopped in Cheyenne for dinner which should have just been a drive-by. Shy Ann should just stay shy. What a blah town. Pretty capital building. We had the hardest time finding a place to eat. We stumbled across a BBQ place called Tasty BBQ. It get decent reviews. It looks as though it is below a run down motel. The definition of hole in the wall. It was pretty good food. We once again filled the table with various BBQ meats and sides. From the picture you can see that everyone must have liked it.

From dinner we decided to drive as far as we could. While we were driving through Nebraska, we hit a storm of bugs. It sounded like rain but it was bugs splatting on the windshield. This happened on the way out to Seattle as well. My friend Michelle who has a place in North Dakota say you need this bug juice spray for your car. We didn't get it. Everyone at the gas station was scrubbing their windows. Gross. Not sure what kind of bugs. Clear juice. Hmmm. We also hit a good wall of fog when it was dark which was a little alarming though we were the only ones on the road.

Funny story, Ben has a way of asking questions that he really hasn't put much thought into. Ben has a way of throwing out a sarcastic comment when he is not happy about what has been asked of him, then claiming he wasn't trying to be disrespectful. Maybe he wasn't or maybe he thinks we are dumb. He has a way of saying and doing things that play on Paul patience or there lack of. Yesterday, he was up between us in the car asking to do something (after we've told him to get in his seat a thousand times), by the end of the exchange, I could see Paul getting frustrated (with good reason) when Ben said something that nearly ended his life. I can't remember what it was but I immediately said, "Get back to your seat." MOtherly instinct to save her young. Paul says, "Yeah, get back to your seat quick, you are still in punching distance." We all started laughing. I am still laughing about it. Paul has this great sense of humor when he is frustrated which I think Ben likes and thinks is funny. He may even provoke Paul just to get a reaction.

We made it to Lincoln Nebraska around midnight. Literally fell into bed and woke up this morning, had breakfast and we are back on the road. We are about 12 hours from home. Can't wait to see our dogs.Read more