On the Road Again

I love my Braeden. He was so excited for this move to Iowa and "going to a new house". I know that the stress wore on all of us and we are trying to get things back to normal as soon as possible for Braeden. The night before the move we heard Braeden over the baby monitor.. in Miles' room. We heard some whispering and some rustling. We heard Braeden telling Miles that "tomorrow we are moving to a new house in Iowa state". Then we heard crying. Braeden had gone in, turned on the light and wanted to share his excitement with his sleeping little brother. We loaded the van with everything that we needed for a week.. not sure when our stuff would be arriving in Iowa. Yes I needed my tree and my plant.... but due to space, my tree ended up in a new home with our neighbor.

These two guys were awesome. The two of them arrived at 8am and they packed and moved everything themselves. I told them that there was no way that everything was going to fit on the truck. All day, they kept telling me it would fit.



Do you see? They barely got the door shut. But wait... what is that sitting on the driveway? Our queen size box spring? They smiled at me and shrugged their shoulders. They then wrapped it in shrink wrap, then a tarp, then shrink wrap again and they tied it right on the back of the moving van and assured me that it would be fine.

Finally at 9pm, the moving van pulled out of the driveway and we were happy to put our weary selves in our own van. Our plan was to get in about 3 hours of driving and make it to Cleveland, Ohio. We did not make it down our street before both kids were in meltdown mode. 7 miles later we checked ourselves in to the Staybridge Suites. We figured it would be better for our sanity if we all got a good nights sleep. The next morning, we took our time, had breakfast, and headed out. My mom, who thought we were somewhere in Ohio, called my cell about 10am and asked where we were. I replied "Buffalo, driving through Dunkin Donuts". "Buffalo ????"


We had a great drive that day. Both kids were great in the car, Braeden watched a couple of movies on the DVD player. Have minivan, will travel. It is great to be able to slip into the back to take care of the boys all the while maintaining our cruising speed.

While cruising down the freeway wishing that we had not already turned our EZpass, we came upon a moving van with a mattress flying in the wind.... just kidding. But, it was our moving van and it was good to know that our box spring had not ended up in the middle of highway 80/90. That evening we hit some major storms somewhere in northern Indiana.. my first thought? I sure hope we don't have a water bed when we get to Iowa.

The rain was coming down so hard that all traffic was at a crawl and the only thing we could see were the emergency flashers on vehicles ahead of us. The wind was blowing debris across the road and I was sure that any minute I could change my name to Dorothy. I could click my flip flops together and say "Sean, we are not in Indiana anymore". The sky lit up above us and the van shook with every thunder. We made it out of the storm and rested for the night in Merrilville, just south of Gary, Indiana.

We had to get an early start the next morning so that we could get to Strawberry Point by 1. We had about a 5-6 hour drive. A drive through for breakfast and coffee and we hit the road again, first and only big city on the route, Chicago.

Driving through the Chicago area made me sweat. It could be our next place of residence. It is huge and the freeways with the trains in the middle are intimidating. I know that we would not live in the city but it is still nerve wracking. We originally had a breakfast date with my Uncle Steve and Aunt Suzie who live just west of the City, but our early departure soured those plans. Raincheck.

Once we hit the rolling hills of western Illinois it was like we were in a whole new world. Lush green countryside, fields of corn. Old towns with large brick buildings and American flags. We were excited when we came upon the Mighty Mississippi... over the river we went and entered Dubuqe Iowa. No turning back now!!

I could not believe that I was loving the views of our new state. It was not what I expected. Heading west from Dubuque took us into bluffs where the rock faces went straight up and the ridges were covered in trees. Then that took us to rolling hills where every space of open land was planted with corn and on every hilltop stood a house shadowed by a red barn.


At the base of those rolling hills we entered into Strawberry Point.

(I missed the sign as we drove by)

Home Sweet Home.