On the road again...

We went enough miles in this trip to necessitate an oil change (except I should come clean here and reveal that I really only change my oil every 6k--slacka, slacka, slacka).In Ohio we stayed in an affordable hotel with a pool, internet, and hot breakfast. Those hotels.com receptionists are amazing!

We were all interested in visiting Winter Quarters, the site where thousands of Latter-day Saints stayed during the brutal winter of 1846–47. Some Brinton ancestors are buried in the Mormon Pioneer Cemetery across the street from this visitor's center. When I think of them I wonder how they might react to our sometimes casual behavior toward church membership and religious freedom. Would it sadden them to know that we don't think very often about their sacrifices? Who was this Great Aunt Sarah who suffered here? 

For the last night of our trip we went to my sister's, where my brother-in-law Donny told stories about Navy showers, flex fuel, and shopping on Black Friday. The resulting laughter, combined with Sandra's good food, made us wish we could stay longer. Maybe we'll have to plan a trip to CO soon? 

OK, let's face it: road trips aren't all pansies. When we arrived at my parents' house I was so tired that I came within inches of applying dog shampoo to my hair. We were at one point parked in a traffic jam in Pennsylvania for three hours with no food or water (three cheers for my emergency preparedness skills!). We endured six screenings of "Scooby Doo and the Riki Tiki" and that many visits to fast food venues. We emptied our wallets on those incessant toll roads. Oh, and our van smells like fruit snack vomit. 

But it was the greatest experience that this family has ever had, bar none. Jacob suggested that next year we take a road trip to Greece. "What about the ocean?" I asked. After thinking for a second, he brightened: "I guess that we'll have to take a jet ski!"

Road Trip

Jack Kerouac reports that he wrote the influential On the Road in just three weeks, which seems unreasonably short. Yet driving across the country during this past week left me so inspired that I feel as if a dozen novels brew inside. My appreciation for America's vastness, its diversity, its greatness is suddenly renewed. And with gas at $1.53 or so a gallon, it was a fine time to make the trip.

   
Here's Jacob in Wyoming near a field of bison (which were apparently behind him when I took this picture!). I figured that I would take a picture of each of the kids in each state that we drove through and then compile the photos in a notebook. I actually forgot about my goal in Iowa, Illinois, and Indiana, so we'll have to catch the "I" states on the way back.  
Here Jacob and Eric meander through the Desert Dome at the famed Omaha Zoo. The zoo's focus on biome had us all entranced, as we found our way through a swampland, rainforest, butterfly forest, and shark tunnel.

Here's an accurate synopsis of our nutrition during the trip: only foods with "corn syrup" as a main ingredient, please! As a teenager, my ward's tradition of bringing donuts to seminary cured me of ever craving them again. I think that this road trip has cured me of both McDonald's hamburgers and Teddy Grahams. 

One trip highlight was touring the Kirtland Temple, a structure built by some of our church's founders. Historians recently discovered that the doors were actually a deep green apple color, so they were repainted accordingly.

Now we're hanging out at my parents' home in rural Maryland, where my mom made us beef stew and folded our laundry. At church this morning Jacob told his Sunbeam teacher that there is a huge bridge connecting his house to the Statue of Liberty (he's got geography on the brain). It's an ideal destination for an ideal drive across the country.