We are safely ensconced in my parents house.

I never want to ride in a car again.

We drove over 1600 miles, 200 initially, and 1400 in the three days following Lee’s car repairs. In my car I had the kids and three very testy and vocal cats. It turns out cats don’t like to be shoved into a kennel (regardless of the care with which you prepare it) with other cats and then driven across the country in the trunk of a Toyota Matrix. Lee carried the dogs, our luggage, and the trailer. He also dealt with odd noises and a nigh-constant fear of another breakdown. (Turns out Subaru’s aren’t able to do what their specifications say they can do.)

I had fun seeing new parts of the country. I drove through a really cool wind energy farm, and shot some pics I will put up eventually. We saw lots of ranches and farms, and a great number of little oil wells too.

Monkey played travel Bingo and subsisted entirely on candy and chicken nuggets. Otter played with his toy cars, keys, and books, and then resorted to playing with his feet. He was really not happy with the prolonged stay in the carseat. He kept telling me that it was a violation of the torture code in the Baby Geneva Convention, but I told him it was an unavoidable evil. When the kids came close to losing it I popped in a DVD. ( I never want to hear Aladdin again.) However, it has to be said that my kids were troopers. They were amazingly calm and dealt very well with a ridiculously unpleasant situation. I had very little screaming and crying, and very little argument. I am a very lucky mama.

The next few weeks will find me busily moving into our place. However, I am going to try to get back into the habit of diligently posting my permanently numb butt off.

After buying some GPS systems and visiting the Daniel Boone Homestead, we high tailed it out of PA yesterday, and drove lazily through to St. Clair Ohio where we rested in a Red Roof Inn high on a hill overlooking a tiny little rest stoppy town-like thing. We ate Denny’s and Monkey rode her scooter up and down the Inn’s sidewalk. We gazed at the wall of shimmering fireflies in the hill behind our room and snuggled the Otter a lot. All was well with the world, as we were finally out of the Motel 6 in PA.

This morning we hit the road a little before 11 and drove 530 miles into Troy Illinois, where we are staying at another Red Roof Inn, this one with pool and WiFi (Hence my hello!). We are a little more than halfway home.

The dogs are sleeping most of the time (yay for Dramamine) and the kids have been very well behaved with their movies and snacking. Otter isn’t a huge fan of the car seat anymore, and he has begun to cry real tears in the hopes of getting out of it, but I tell him there is very little we can do. Luckily he really likes classical music, so I can calm him relatively easily.

The cats have begun to fight over a tiny little balcony spot in their habitat. Everytime I check on them they are squeezed on top of each other mewing piteously. They are making me quite mad. Luckily I can drown the mews out with my ipod (it’s either that or listen to audio from Barbie’s Repunzel twelve times a day.)

Thank you all for the lovely comments on the last post. I was about half a step from complete madness when his car started smoking, so I am glad to be back on the side of sanity. I still haven’t begun drinking, but I will take you all up on your offers and just spend my first week home on a bender.

We leave tomorrow for our cross country trek. The kids are all set with games, art, music, and dvds. The cats have a two level palatial habitat to while away the hours in, and I have fig newtons and more water than you can shake a stick at.

I will try to keep you updated on the journey, it should be an interesting one.