Day 3: The day we almost died

We left my sister’s house at 6am, before the sun was up.  We found the freeway and pushed on.  And stopped an hour later for gas and caffeine.  We pushed on some more and then stopped for the bathroom.  We got back on the freeway and just as we passed the last exit for 45 miles, Nathaniel would start to scream “I have to go PEE RIGHT NOW!!!!”.  Many bushes have now been marked with my boys scent, because if one gets to pee on the side of the road, they all suddenly had to go pee.

If I only brought one thing on our trip, it would be the Costco size box of candy bars.

Dave:  Did you bring enough candy bars for everyone for EVERY state line.

Me:  It’s a costco-size box.  Of course I did.  Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Louisiana, Florida.

Dave:  What about Alabama and Mississippi.

Me:  What about them?  No, we aren’t going through them. (duh, implied)

Dave:  Are we going to fly over them?

Me:  Seriously, we aren’t going through them.  (Dave handed me a map)

Me:  Aren’t you glad I homeschool our kids.

Dave:  So do you have enough candy?

Me:  Maybe we could stop at a walmart and buy a bag of fun size candy bars.  Okay kids!  Fun size candy bars at state lines that we spend less than 3 hours in!

New Mexico, is the only state that understands this picture-taking phenomenon.  There was a large turnout and the sign was well off the freeway.  We could have parked and eaten lunch with the amount of room they allocated.  But then again, it is New Mexico, they have lots of barren land.

And then we drove.  and drove.  and drove some more.  Somewhere around lunchtime we entered Texas.  We couldn’t find the Texas sign. We did find these amazing star sculptures in the middle of a busy intersection.

Me: I don’t know, I heard everything is bigger and better in Texas.  Maybe they decided they had to be better than the road sign.

Dave:  Let’s stop!

Me:   This is the middle of a busy intersection!  No way!  Here I took a picture with my phone.  Good enough.  We’ll photoshop it.

 

Dave:  No, I’ll drive around there’s got to be a way to take a picture with the lone star.

After 25 minutes of driving around we found a semi safe place to take a picture with the star.

Please notice the very small star in the back ground.  Also what is unseen is the large patch of prickly plants we are standing in.  We all got in the car and headed back to the freeway, where of course, we found the real sign.

Notice, I’m holding Nathaniel for dear life.  For some reason he seemed drawn to the Texas freeway like a moth to flame.

Dave:  Hurry!  Hurry! Get back in the car!  I think I see the cops!

Which of course set us all into a giggle fest.

Marshall:  Since we took two pictures, does that mean we get two candy bars?

***

And we drove and drove and drove.  We drove for ever, and then drove some more.  It was really quite amazing how big Texas is.  Somewhere around 8pm, Jacob could not stand a second longer.  Thankfully we found a fast food restaurant with a play ground.  The kids refused to eat, they only wanted to play. Which was fine with me, they could eat in the car, we had lots more driving to do.

Dave needed to play too.

and somewhere close to midnight we pulled into the Howard Johnsons in San Antonio.

Jacob looked around the room and said, “I don’t like this place.  I like the place where there are fun cousins and people who say ‘Hello, Jacob!’  ”