On and On and On and On and On and On and On and .........

That's my opinion of I-90. It's like the Energizer Bunny; it keeps going and going............and going and going.

We spent Friday night at Amy's house. The plan was that David would come home from work, we'd get the cars loaded up, David would go to his goodbye dinner with all the people from work, and I'd go to Amy's. The reality was that David came home from work, we spent a long time trying to get the house finished up, David went to his party, I continued to pack, David came home from his party, we spent a lot more time cleaning up and getting the cars packed, and finally went to Amy's house about 10:30pm. Hope didn't get one more evening to play with McKenna, we didn't get any real time to spend with Amy and Andre before we left. We sat on the couch and talked for about an hour and then we all went to bed.

As expected, we didn't leave at 7am like I wanted to. Instead we left about 8:30. The Garmin had us going West on Highway 20 instead of going back to I-90. That actually was fine with me because, although it wasn't 70 (or 90) mph the whole way, it was a lot more interesting. We took that highway into Indiana, and then somewhere headed north to Minnesota. Somewhere near the western edge of Minnesota we finally got on I-90.

Last year when we drove to Rockford, we spend most of our second day driving through South Dakota. It's a long, boring state. This time, we got to South Dakota about 1pm, and drove all the stinkin' way across the state. At one point I was very close to falling asleep; in desperation I took a cue from all the stupid comedy movies where they slap themselves to stay awake, and was surprised to find it actually works! We got to Rapid City about 9:30 but had to find a gas station (since the Blazer stalled on the off ramp, it was so empty), a place to eat, our hotel (and of course they didn't have our reservation correct so I had to frantically call Bryn to get more info) so I don't think we got to our room until 10:30. Poor Naomi was so exhausted she couldn't get herself calmed down and the room was so tiny- there was no place to put her where she couldn't see us- so we got to listen to her cry for awhile; it took lots longer for her to go to sleep than usual.

Sunday was more of the same: long, boring drive. Both the girls were probably heartsick to get strapped back into those carseats for another thirteen-hour trip. Hope entertained herself watching movies on her DVD player, but Naomi doesn't like to watch tv, so she entertained herself by bugging Hope. Halfway through the day we put Hope in David's car since the sun was shining on her side of the car; at least the Blazer has tinted windows to make it a little better. Naomi also figured out how to sleep in the car, so she wasn't as crabby Sunday. The bad part of the trip was that we got to the twisty, curvy part of the freeway in Montana at nightfall. I dislike driving in the dark; I hate driving at high speeds on curvy roads. The combo was not fun for me. But we got through it safely. David and I bought two-way radios so we could talk to each other during the stretches of Wyoming and Montana that don't have cell reception; we talked to each other alot and kept each other awake. Actually, the curves kept me very awake. David's parents were nice enough to wait up till 11:30 when we finally pulled into their driveway. Both girls were asleep but figured it was time to wake up when we got out of the car; we had a tough time convincing Naomi she needed to go back to sleep instead of making faces at Nana. Finally we got to go to bed, in a familiar bed, with our own bedroom, separate from both girls, back in Washington.