4 States and Counting...

Today we reached the east end of Iowa, crossed through Illinois, and ended in Indiana.  I'm counting four states today, because we took a quick foray up into Michigan, a mere two miles from where we're staying in Elkhart, IN.  Up there, my husband found a geocache at an old, lovely cemetery where we saw headstones dating from the late 1800's to modern times.

This is the earliest we've checked into a hotel so far, so I hope we can take advantage of the hour and get a good night's sleep.  Last night, very late, I awoke to find my two children on the floor near the window, where light was coming in beneath the curtains, playing Pokemon.  Sigh. I also hope our TV doesn't randomly come on at 4:30 this morning like the one in our hotel room LAST night did. That was weird.  I think someone played a practical joke on us.  My husband found out it was set to do that. Nice.

I can't complain too much. My kids are doing very well with all the car travel (nearly 1,100 miles in two full days!), and we've been doing school work both mornings in the car.  But they've been troopers. Hopefully, tonight, they will go to sleep.  Tomorrow is a big day!  We're going to get up early and travel about 3 hours to Ohio where they'll enjoy one of the biggest theme parks in the country.  Fun stuff!  This IS vacation, after all. 

There were a few firsts today.  I've never been to Indiana, Michigan, or really Illinois (save a few minutes at the airport, running from one plane to the next).  Iowa was a real surprise to me. I'd always assumed it was extremely flat and featureless, but I was pleasantly surprised that it was mostly rolling hills and seemed pretty heavily forested in some places.  And very, very green.  Much of the drive since then has been the same, with even more forests as we have traveled east. The little bit of the south part of Michigan we saw was absolutely gorgeous.  Several houses with lovely little forests for front yards.

(BTW, I didn't take this photo. I found it online and it's the supposed to be near where we were in Michigan this evening.  If I'd tried to take a photo of a view like this, it wouldn't look like this. I'm bad with a camera.  And not bad in a good way.)

After today, we'll be traveling fewer miles each day, so I hope to get more photos. Its' been pretty crazy so far with all the car travel, but our trusty van has held up and we're all in great spirits.  We did have another Coloradan honk and wave to us as he passed us in his Jeep, somewhere south of Chicago.  That was pretty neat.

I'm off to bed.  If I can get the kids to put away their Pokemon cards, that is...