Shakedown Cruise

Bekah gave a deep sigh of resignation " My foot is all sweaty, and it's not my sweat."

This pretty much sums up how tight we are packed into the Volvo. Feet on feet, thigh on thigh.. when Luke ate a gummi worm, gramma m'am had the sugar flash. Someone was on the hump in hot backseat,no footroom for their carryon bag so it sat on their lap. The twitchy 11 yr old had the biggest learning curve. He is used to be given a very wide berth but in the car, on this trip, wide was out of the question. Each of his moves were felt by someone. His volume had to be adjusted to a much lower level, another huge challenge for him. By the end of the day the tension between the senior and jr male would have me in tears at a really lousy restaurant table ( really.. who put cumin in chicken noodle soup??)We all knew the first day would be hard, and it didn't disappoint.

When Skipper Dave announced that if anyone had to go to the bathroom, to just give him ample warning, Luke tried it out and we were pulling into a MCDonalds 20 minutes from our house. We didn't even make it out of KC.

Don't get me wrong, there were highlights, we stopped to see the St Louis Arch and all of us were gleeful to get out of the car and see the sights. My children rediscovered the joy of the Rest Area.And well, there is only 24 hrs to a day, it had to end at some point. And it did. Not far enough along, but it ended just on the border of Illinois and Indiana, falling short of our goal on Indy on day.. but succeeding in accomplishing a major feat. We all survived, lived and learned from day one.