trip odometer:3,055
miles today: 475We started our day bright and early. We pulled out of Nauvoo at 6:30 am after giving lots of hugs to grandma and grandpa. The children in the van were soon asleep, except of course for William. We watched miles of farms go by. It's neat to see the barns with pieces of plywood on their sides painted like quilts. There are also wild lillies that grow on the side of the road in big bunches. We stopped in Des Moines, Iowa at Bauder Pharmacy for ice cream. The strawberry ice cream was fabulous.
We picked up redbox movies at the grocery store and Isaac took advantage of our stop to empty the contents of his stomach, nice! After Des Moines, we drove to the Council Bluff rest stop near the Nebraska border. We ate lunch in the parking lot and I was feeling so efficient! My shelf adaptation worked great and made accessing the microwave so much easier. I loaded everything up, walked around the van the long way to make sure we didn't forget anything, and got in the car to leave. Instead of the wonderful sound of the engine coming to life, I only heard, "click, click, click". We'd managed to drain the battery! I figured I'd use the battery on the trailer and had forgotten that Dode had thrown in a wrench for me so I asked the friendly trucker next door if he had a wrench I could borrow. Nope, he was in too much of a hurry and couldn't help. I went through my things and found the wrench Dode had packed me and after a bit of wrestling and the use of a hammer to get the long pesky bolt off the top of the battery, I figured we were good to go. I hooked everything up, turned the key and got the same clicking result. I'm not sure if there wasn't enough juice in the trailer battery or if I didn't have a good connection but I gave up on that plan. Next, I walked over to the bathroom area and asked the first person I saw if he'd help me. I found out that my jumper cables aren't very long! He had to put the nose of his van up against my bumper and it was still a tight reach. After lots of wiggling the cords, and probablly 20 minutes of fiddling, I was beginning to despair. Finally, I turned the key and heard the most wonderful sound in the world, the engine coming to life. It brought tears to my eyes that my crisis was over. Of course, during that 20 minute fiddling, children were screaming at each other, screaming at the universe, the van was not a peaceful place to be.
this photo was taken before he moved his van three times, trying to get closer each time
The rest of our journey was uneventful and we arrived at our campground around 4:30. After getting everything set up, we went to Grand Island, Nebraska (about a 15 minute drive) to a Runza fast food restaurant. A "runza" is like a hot pocket. It is the state food of Nebraska. My runza didn't look much like the one on the reader board in the restaurant. I think they forgot the meat on mine! The bread was good though.
We got back to camp and the pool felt so good after the heat of the day and the long drive. Miriam and Anastaya played a game where they tossed the pool ring and tried to land it on each other.
can you see the mermaid's tail? that's Elizabeth
We munched our wake across Iowa and Nebraska with Sharon's yummy pumpkin cookies and some cinnamon rolls Lynn had bought us. Yum!
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