Columbus--St. Louis

Yesterday morning we were lucky enough to  be able to meet up with our friends from Punta Arenas, Chile.  We met them first at Torres del Paine in the VERY south of Chile.  Next we saw them again in Santiago, and this time in Columbus, OH (where her parents live).  We were joking that if we keep moving north like this, the next time we meet will have to be in Canada somewhere...

We had breakfast together at Jack & Benny's near OSU and the girls had a chance to run around with them a bit before our long drive for the day.

 It rained a LOT on our drive...

We did see some folks who are taking a bigger road trip than us.

Making progress--into my home state.  It was so weird to be just a couple of hours from where I grew up and not go down to Marion.  I did a salute as we went past Hwy 57.  Feels like home around here..

Eventually we got to the KOA near St. Louis and the girls had fun jumping on the bouncy pillow, swimming, and rounding out the evening with roasted hot dogs and s'mores (a first for A)!

Road trip USA!!!

Yesterday we embarked on our epic US road trip.  Our basic route looks like this (we're heading clockwise)...

The grand departure, wearing our official road trip t-shirts. For some reason I have derived a disproportionate amount of joy from the fact that we have an official trip t-shirt.  Sometimes it's the little things...  The fancy flower headbands are courtesy of A's mom, and are also part of our official paraphernalia.  

We met with J's dad when we arrived in Columbus, checked into the hotel, went to see "Inside Out" (great movie!) and had dinner in German Village. 

J came with us this far and is heading back to Pittsburgh via Greyhound today. We had a bit of shuffling on the first part of the trip to get comfortable in our cozy carspace.  After some serious consideration I'm sending a few things back with him so that we have a bit of extra space. I think we'll get in the groove of how to pack/unpack the car each day as we get into this. I can certainly see the advantages of traveling with a motorhome for extended trips, although when I'm on the road I'm so thankful to be maneuvering my own little car.