Night 1.... Update from the road

Dinner on Night 1 at a rest stop right outside of St. Louis

We left our house around 1:30 on Thursday (Ummmm, that's today. Feels like it's been a week already.)  Anyhow, we left our house and actually made it about 2 hours before the very first "WHEN ARE WE GONNA BE THERE?" hit.  That's a new family record, folks!

We packed our picnic and stopped right outside of St. Louis to eat at a rest area.  It was awesome to have food ready to go.  Typically, we eat out at restaurants on the road--almost always, which means we usually overeat after fighting about where we're going to eat and spend way too much money on food that's not all that great.  The rest stop was quick (food was ready!  Just pulled it out of the cooler and BAM! Eat a wrap!) and the restrooms were clean.  We packed a bag of "fun stuff" (frisbee, football, tennis ball, etc) and grabbed that out of the back.  Everybody ate and then we ran around playing for about 10 minutes before hitting the road again.  

We had not planned on stopping in St. Louis to see the arch since we had just stopped for dinner, but we just couldn't help ourselves.  I mean, seriously--it IS the "Gateway to the WEST!"    The arch is pretty awesome.  About 2 years ago, we did a family trip to STL and actually went up inside the arch so my big kids have great memories from that time.  Will wasn't with us on that trip, so we wanted him to see and experience the grandness of the arch too, so we made a U-turn after we passed it and headed back.  Took up about 20 minutes total, but the detour was well worth it!  We took a quick video, a few pics and got back in the car headed toward Kansas City. 

Seeing the arch from the highway

Sitting on a bench by the Mississippi River


We have now made it through TN, KY, IL and MO. At midnight, we drive into KS. I drove the last 3 hours and now it's Michael's turn. We are 400 miles to CO-- our plan is to take turns driving a 100 mile shift and rotate the rest of the night like that. 

I'll close tonight out with this funny picture. I bought eye masks for everyone to help keep the lights (street or sun) from interfering with their sleep. Here are the 3 guys.... Notice Will's slipped over his mouth. He is REALLY knocked out! We just stopped for gas and coffee (midnight) and he never even stirred.