Road Trip Day One

Here we go folks! I'm going to try to give you the condensed version as there's lots I can go on and on about on certain days, but since I'm way behind I'll try to keep it as brief as possible. (Don't hold me to it though.) We left for our big road trip on Tuesday, the 25th of May. I wasn't sure what to expect for our first long day on the road and two kids in the backseat, but it turned out pretty good. Most of the car was loaded the night before, and after we loaded the final few things that morning it was time to leave the Shearwater nest and hit the road. Here are my two wonderful little travelers all ready to go.


We pretty much got out of the house on time that morning around 9am like we had planned. We figured it was probably going to be a long day so we made a pit stop for coffee at Beaner's (well Biggby, but I still call it Beaner's) and then got on the road about 9:30am. Let the road trip begin! The kids were all settled in the back with their DVD players and their backpacks of things to do. I started out driving until we stopped for lunch and then Greg took over. We managed to make it about five and a half hours before the first, "How much longer?" was spoken. Not bad I'd say. I really expected to hear it a lot sooner. I can't remember now who said it, but I think it was Evan. We drove and drove until we reached St. Louis, MO where we had planned to stop and see the Gateway Arch.

Neither Greg or I had seen the Arch before so it was a first time for us all. The kids thought it was really cool and we did too. It really is quite neat to see. We took lots of pictures outside and then headed inside. Did you know there's a whole museum, gift shop, and more underground of the Arch? Did you know that you can actually ride up inside the arch to the top and look out the windows at the top? Apparently I'm out of the loop or something because I didn't know you could ride up to the top. We happened to get there right before they closed so we had to whip through the museum in 10 minutes and unfortunately the ride to the top stopped an hour before closing time so we couldn't do that either. I guess we should of checked into it before we got there, but apparently there are shortened hours before Memorial Day and then they have extended hours for the summer. I figured it would be open until at least 8pm though, but that wasn't the case and closed at 6pm. Oh well, at least we got to see it. We also got to see the arena where MSU played in the Sweet 16 so Evan thought that was neat too.

We decided after seeing the Gateway Arch that we'd drive a little further so that we didn't get stuck in all that St. Louis traffic in the morning. We ended up stopping in Eureka, MO for the night after our first day on the road and called it a day. We totaled about 530 miles for the day and just under nine hours of driving. Not bad for day one. I really have to commend my children for their first day on the road. I don't think they really knew what to expect, and they ended up doing fabulous in the car! They watched four movies on day one- Toy Story, Snow White, Ice Age, & Cars. It was a great first day and I was pleasantly surprised at how smoothly our day on the road went! Stay tuned tomorrow for details on day two of the road trip...