At Last! The Last Day of Vacation!

Sunday, July 27, 2008

I woke up to find Banana Boy in my bed. “Mom,” he said sweetly. “You are better!”

“Better than what?” I had to ask.

“A coyote,” he answered, his voice full of love.

Uh, yay, me.


7:07 am Hazy, but sunny and pleasant. We’re all packed up and saying good bye to the cabin.

Our cabin. You, too, can stay here. Go to Koinania Cottage

Each morning the kids open their bag of presents from Nonny.

They’re begging the second they are in the car, but we’ve been making them wait.

The first day they had to wait for the first stop sign.

The second day they had to wait for the second stop sign.

The third day they had to wait until after we had the tire fixed.

Today they had to see a dead armadillo first.

It took a surprisingly long time, but the one we finally found was nice and fresh. There weren’t even any flies buzzing over it yet. Mr. GT whizzed past and by popular vote, we made him turn around so we could get a better look. The kids had never seen a real armadillo, after all!

Want to see it closer?


He (it WAS a boy) was pronounced “Cool!” Thus began a lot of silly armadilly talk.

Hi Ho I love you so.

A dead armadillo
A dead armadillo
We’re drivin’ over you – Banana Boy

Everybody wants a dead armadillo
Yours is a purse and mine is a pillow --Mom

Everybody wants a dead armadillo
Mine’s dipped in chocolate
Yours is dipped in broccoli crumbs --Daisy

Everybody’s seen a dead ‘dillo
Mine is slow…
…and so is yours. –Rose Bud

Rose Bud posing as a dead armadillo.

We connect up with Hwy. 61 near St. Louis. Crabbiness is at a medium level, about what I’d expect for the long drive. Banana Boy is melting down in a major way, so somewhere (no idea where) we stop at a Starbucks for coffee for me and a change of seats. I moved next to Banana Boy, which calmed him down for a while. The other kids amused themselves with Adventures in Odyssey CDs and leftover slime from VBS. The girls each brought a vial of slime powder and used water from their water bottles to mix it into a delightfully slimey mess to play with.

Lunch was in the visitor center parking lot of Hannibal, MO. We’re down to bagels, peanut butter and Nutella, baby carrots and grapes. A perfect picnic. I was able to get connected and posted 3 days worth of blogs. Now that lunch is over, everyone seems to be in a better mood. Hopefully, it will be naptime soon.

Hey. That was all I wrote that day so long ago. So you'll have to imagine how the rest of the trip went. Facts you need to know:
Lunch in Hannibal, MO : 11:30 am
Drive into the driveway: 6:30 pm

I'll let you fill in the details!