The Olympics?! Really?!

Mark got the idea to leave on Friday evening after work rather than Saturday morning, a couple days ago.  I didn't know what I thought of the idea.  I didn't look forward to unloading luggage for just one night, getting the kids to sleep in a strange place or paying for a hotel stay for six hours.

However,  I did like the idea of breaking up the ungodly 16 hour car ride though.

We went ahead and left on Friday night at 6:15pm.  We drove until 8:30 and had dinner at Arby's in Clear Lake.  The kids were excited to watch a movie in the car.  That's something special we only do on the way to or from Colorado.  We got Scooby Doo rockin' and the whole family was happy.  It ended just before 10pm, we said prayers and told them it was time to sleep. They were both sleeping in a few minutes.  We drove and drove and drove.  We talked and talked and watched for deer.  At 12:00 I said we should start looking for a place to stay since the kids will be up at 6am anyway.  At 12:20 we pulled into a little hotel.  I waited in the running car with the kids while Mark went in to get a room.  I did think the parking lot was awfully full.

"The god damn Olympics are in town.  Everything's full."
"WHAT?!  The Olympics aren't even in this country?"
"The swimming tryouts are in Nebraska, apparently."

On the Road Again, began playing in my head.

I was laughing and not that tired.  Driving straight through and showing up at Aunt Joan's at 7:08am (as  the GPS indicated) actually crossed my mind.  But Mark was tired (and cranky) and wanted off the road.  We drove and drove and drove....long story short.... we finally found one.  Victoria happened to wake up and started rambling facts about the moon as we pulled in just before 2am.  Mark woke Christian up who walked into the hotel.  The only things we brought into the hotel were the phone and computer chargers, two laptops, four toothbrushes and toothpaste.

Unbelievably, we all snuggled up in one comfortable king bed and dozed off.  Until Mark yelped in pain from Christian kicking him you know where in his sleep.  We all slept until 7:40.  Put clothes back on, brushed teeth and we were off.

We found a wonderful little breakfast place (ok, it was really a truck stop) called the Iron Skillet.  They had a very inexpensive breakfast buffet we all enjoyed.

4.5 hours left.  We ended up going more than half way last night.

Whether we liked it or not.