Missouri - part 1

We spotted signs for Ozarakland for miles and miles before we got to it. It sounded cool and cheesy, so we stopped.

These are the awesome faces of Laney.

She's the best.

The rest are pretty good, but her faces are fabulous.

We were so excited to check out this "road trip tradition!"

Addie dutifully searched for her name everywhere we went, but never found it. Which is surprising to me because Addie is a pretty common name now. But we did find sissy's name.

And bubbas.

Lanes tried on some rockin shades. 

And I found this little diddy. Someday we will road trip and buy every fun thing we find. I'm actually having buyers remorse for not buying this.

And also these awesome hats.

Addie wanted to buy this little diddy. She said it could be a shirt or a dress. Double duty. 

And Frankie wanted to be so bedazzled. Of course, we didn't buy any of these awesome pieces.

Took this for gramps. Big fan of Mr. Wayne.

And Delaney couldn't wait to show the frog section to our Frankie frog.

It was a fun little stop. I could totally see this as a road trip tradition.

The girls loved this... thing.

And of course everyone needs a turn.

And I'm happy to oblige.

They had fun with the hats for a long time.

There was a fun storm brewing. Thankfully it went by peacefully.

And that was part 1 in Missouri. 

Indian Cave

Driving through Nebraska we saw this fun museum that crossed over the freeway. Next time.

We were ready for a stop, so I used my road trip app to see if there were any cool stops nearby. There was a wild rose farm, so we tried to stop there, but it was nonexistent. That was a pretty lame first time app stop. But we did find this cool crane sanctuary.

Matt tested out this awesome trail bike.

And then we were off again!

Our next stop was also in Nebraska at the Indian Cave State Park.

We enjoyed Addie's sparkly shirt as we paid for our day pass.

We saw this antique and I had to use it.

Thought bubbles above the girls heads would read "my mom is straight tripping."

We drove through a windy and desolate state park for several miles out to the Indian cave area.

It was almost unbearably stiflingly hot.

We were sweaty and sticky from the second we got out of the car, which was made worse by the fact that we'd been in chilly Seattle and Oregon for the past 2 weeks.

They don't know how old the caves are, or exactly what they were used for, but there are dozens of hieroglyphic characters carved throughout the caves.

The girls ran up and down and all around.

We tried to spot the ancient markings, but so many people have also carved into it, that it was hard to find them.

It's a shame that so many people have desecrated it.

Oh Laney.

Trying hard to find the markings!

They had a few examples.

It was fun to find the ones they displayed.

The park sits on the Missouri River, so after we explored the cave, we walked across to the banks of the river and watched a coast guard boat doing who knows what.

My teenage hubby took another opportunity to skate.

And then it was time to go. That AC felt so good!

Just before a bridge, and right next to a railroad track where another train crossed right in front of us, we entered Missouri, but grabbed this picture on the Nebraska side.

Every time we kissed in the car the girls would ask which new state we were in. But sometimes it wasn't even a new state, we just wanted a kiss. ***Heart eye emoji**

And more road trip sightings. Fun bridge. 

Pretty setting sun.

And finally:

The girls were so good. I didn't push much more school than some of their road trip books and journal writing for the trip back home, it just got to be too much. But they were good sports and got along so well. They really are the perfect age to travel. Easy going, generally happy, and easy to entertain. 

On the road

Addie and Frankie are so lucky their baby sister always wanted to sleep on the floor. We were going to make them rotate, but almost every night Laney volunteered. She was a great sleeper! (Wish I could say the same for since she's been home!)

We followed pretty closely along the Mormon trail, although we never stopped at any of their sites. We wanted to, and would have, but we missed them, or didn't know where they were, or didn't care to take the time to search them out.

We stopped for gas in Rock Springs, WY, and had seen some historical markers across the street, so we decided to stretch our legs and check them out.

Our little country bumpkins loved exploring the desert with their daddy.

Walking on the railroad tracks was exciting and 6scary for them.

We found railroad spikes and different kinds of plants and bugs.

Our little bug was apprehensive the whole time.

Then Matt scared all of us by announcing that a train was coming. It was minutes away from us, but I had told them the story of my great aunt and uncle that were killed by a train, and tensions were high.

We were excited to be that close, and we  watched and waved. Then I got the bright idea that, since getting a trucker to honk at us was on our bucket list, (and we checked it off!) why not try to get a train to honk at us.

It worked. Let's zoom in on this picture...

That there is the face of a girl who forgot how loud train whistles are! It was SO loud! It scared the heeby jeebies out of us! But it was fun, and we added it to our bucket list to check it off.

It's funny that they aren't familiar with trains. We don't have any around us now, but we were just miles away in New Mexico.

Baby bug was scared, but in daddy's arms everything is ok.

After our train fun it was time to go. Our jolly green giant kept us all safe and got us where we needed to be easily. She's a good giant car!

Matt took a few minutes to skateboard at another rest area later that day. We ate breakfast at our hotels, lunch and snacks from our car food, and then dinner out.

We took this for ol' smilin' Jack! As we were leaving the desert for the forrest.

Land of Lincoln! Nebraska though, not Illinois.

We stopped at a truckstop near Cheyenne for dinner. We ate and rested, and as we left the wind was howling and a major storm was brewing. The girls (and I) were anxious, but we still took the time for a fun picture.

When lanes was being baby Carrie (Ingalls) at the start of our trip, she was using this tree from the queen of hearts as a binkie. Then she just did it the whole trip, which was gross, but harmless I guess.

The girls thought it was so funny the way she'd fallen asleep.

We got to our hotel in north platte, ne earlier than normal, so we let the girls swim at night instead of in the morning.

It was all fun until Delaney had an accident, if you know what I mean.

Then Matt took d and a up, and I stayed with Frankie. She wanted a pic of herself at the other side of the pool.

Cute girl.

Another fun thing from that morning was that we saw hundreds of mini coopers headed toward Utah. After the first few hundred, we finally looked it up and found that there was an adventure drive across America for mini coopers. Super fun!