We've Been Everywhere, Man.

We just finished up our long road trip for this year. Iowa for the Fourth of July. We L O V E to drive across the country with the kids. We pull out our trusty State Farm Atlas and map a fun and exciting route there and back. (We have been twice to Iowa and have gone there and back different ways each time)

Here are the crazies on our way out of town!
We went north on 75 instead of 35 this time. Here I was taking a picture of this cool (to me) bridge over the Red River ...

and I missed getting a good shot of the Oklahoma sign! (It's barely in the picture on the left. However - if you look close you can see the atlas in the reflection of the window!)

While following the route on the atlas I discovered we would be going through Checotah Oklahoma - the birthplace of Carrie Underwood - our favorite American Idol. I really thought there would be a HUGE sign about that or something - it must be in the middle of the town square.

We also travelled through Commerce OK - the birthplace of Mickey Mantle. I was unprepared for this and missed the sign that actually said that. While in Commerce OK we discovered that we were travelling on a portion of the original Route 66 and it took us into Kansas. The kids were excited to find that out and were looking everywhere for Lightening McQueen or Mater and kept asking if we were in Radiator Springs yet!

We spent the night in Kansas then continued on to Iowa by way of an old Farm Road and the scenery was BEAUTIFUL!

***We took a day trip into Omaha and while there - we saw the sacred Rosenblatt Stadium - home to the College World Series. (Todd would love, love, love to go to a game there one day - preferably to see one of kids playing there - but would love to be there either way!)

***Our route home took us through Nebraska (to Lincoln) and we drove around the University of Nebraska. We decided that we needed to come up in October and go to a college football game - plans for that vacation are in the works!

We also drove through Manhattan KS and drove around KSU. It's never too early to check out colleges - 9 years is not so far away! I have decided that the kids need to stay in Texas because I couldn't bear it if they were any farther away than that. I am pretty sure, however, that they will all want to get as far away as possible!

One of the games we like to play in the car is to keep track of the different state license plates we see while driving. We completely forgot to do that this time around. We did count how many states we had all been in and the kids have been in quite a few states. Iowa, Tennessee, Colorado, New York, Utah, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Arizona, Nebraska - to name a few (actually all) But that is a lot of states for such young kids!

Like I said - We have been everywhere, man!

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