The trip home was a little more difficult that the one out. I think of Oregon as the middle point since it was the ultimate goal and the place at which we turned around toward home. But, I need to remember that it took us 4 weeks to get there, and we were trying to get home in 2. As I said before, I had not really planned past Vegas, so in Oregon, I started to really look at the schedule for the trip home. It was at this point that I realized that our plan to be flexible on a return date was not really reasonable. On Tuesday the 31st, my parents were coming to Charlottesville, so it would be easiest to pick up Coda. And, Zack was having a field trip on that day, rescheduled from a couple weeks before. So, getting home before Memorial Day seemed the best.
The stop the kids were most looking forward to was the trip to Cedar Point in Ohio. We had watched a show about the best rides in the world, and it talked about the ones in Vegas and the ones at Cedar Point. They couldn’t wait. But, it was silly to plan to go over Memorial Day weekend, so we needed to get there to go on the Thursday before the holiday. This put us on a tighter schedule than I would have liked. I really wanted to take it somewhat slow and enjoy ourselves the way we had on the way out. But, we would not make it on time. And, getting to Cedar Point before the weekend was way more important.
It is a lot of miles…of nothing, really. We drove 300-500 miles a day every day but one from Oregon to Cedar Point. We tried to fit in stops along the way, but it definitely got old driving so much every day, usually late into the evening. We made the typical South Dakota stops along the road. We stopped at Wall Drug. That offered us one of the funniest things on our trips. Wish I had had my video camera on. They have a big T-Rex that feeds every 12 minutes. Dave told Matthew he was going to feed him to the dinosaur and picked him up. Almost immediately, the dinosaur started making noises and his eyes lit up. Matthew started screaming and hitting Dave violently to put him down. He was terrified. And, Zack had took off running as fast as he could in the opposite direction. It was really funny – to us, anyway.
We had to see the Corn Palace in Mitchell. We had stayed in Mitchell (because there are not many hotels in SD), so it was an easy stop in the morning. Of course, we found a geocache in the area.
We stopped for lunch in Sioux Falls to check out the falls and do another geocache. The kids enjoyed walking on the rocks and putting their feet in the water.
For school, Alex was assigned a state to learn more about and make a banner to display. He got Iowa. You'd be surprised how little there is in Iowa to put under the "Attractions" heading. One of the things we saw, though, was the Grotto of the Redemption. It is a huge collection of grottos built from rocks all over the world over many years. It was impressive and made for a good, get out of the car and stretch your legs stop.
We definitely had laundry issues. I had done laundry in Oregon, but this schedule was not allowing a stop for laundry. So, my plan was to make it 2 weeks without washing clothes. But, we were running out. At the end, the boys wore the same pants at least 3 days, maybe 4. Who knows what they were covered with. I had to buy them underwear because despite the temptation, I could just not make them wear dirty underwear.
I think 6 weeks is about the perfect amount of time. Toward the end, we were really starting to want to be home. I was getting sick of packing up each morning, living out of the car, and eating out every meal. Rachel was missing Mittens and her friends. And, I think we just wanted to be at our house. But, that is so much better than coming home and wishing you had another week. Now, we will be home with a couple days before school starts to finish up our homework and get some laundry done. And, Dave still has 2 wonderful weeks at home to just relax and hang out with me and Matthew while the big kids go to school. Even the big kids get to go back to school during the end of year festivities – not exactly difficult days. Field day will be on their 3rd day back. And, in 2 weeks, they’ll be off for the summer. It should be a nice step back into reality. We’re already planning our next sabbatical in 6-7 more years – Hawaii next time, if Rachel and I get our wish. But, we’ll see.
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