Trip to Texas

November 30^th dawned bright and early for our family! It was our big moving day! Our goal had been to leave at 7:00 a.m. so we were all up early.

 

The plan was to stop at McDonald’s and pick up some breakfast sandwiches on our way out. Josiah and I have sworn off eating at McDonald’s, so we opted to have leftover pizza from the night before.

One last picture in our house before we left.

Goodbye!

We ended up pulling out at 8:30 a.m. Not exactly on time, but it was only 7:30 a.m. in Texas so depending on how you look at it, we were only 30 minutes late! J Packing everything up from the house took a lot longer than we were expecting.

 

We had gotten medication for the two cats and the dog to keep them calm and preferably sleeping during our two-day drive to Texas. The dog was so loopy, he almost looked drunk the way he staggered around! He couldn’t even get in the car by himself; we had to pick him up and put him in the trunk where he proceeded to sleep the whole day.

 

The cats were a different story. We drugged them, but they fought HARD! They didn’t stop yeowling for 2 hours. We finally let them out of their cages to try and make them a bit more comfortable.

 

Poor Zack looked like roadkill. His little body was succumbing to the drugs, but he was trying hard to fight it.

I’m not even sure if the drugs made it inside Zinnia. She is such a female; she just wanted to vent for two hours straight. We cranked up the Christmas music and tried to ignore them until they went to sleep.

The first day we made it through Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, and into Missouri. We crossed over the Mississippi, and passed by the Gateway Arch in St. Louis before we stopped at our hotel there for the night.

 

Driving into St. Louis. We arrived at our hotel around 6:00 p.m. Central time.

After we got the pets settled into our hotel rooms, we ordered takeout from Bob Evans. Apparently there is no Bob Evans in our part of Texas, which will be an adjustment for us, since that’s one of our favorite restaurants. We wanted to make sure we had it one more time while we had the chance!

The next morning our goal was to leave St. Louis at 7:30 a.m. We did better than the day before and left only 30 minutes late. As you can see from this picture, our van was absolutely packed! The minivan carried all the pets, their paraphernalia, and the ladies, and the rented suburban carried the luggage, the boys, and everything else.

Missouri was a lot more scenic than I was expecting. There were plenty of rolling hills for the most part (it got a little boring during the middle portion of the state.)

The really scary part about Missouri (and Oklahoma, and Texas) is the lack of guardrails. Somewhere in Missouri we drove over a sheer dropoff that had to be at least 100 feet. There was a guardrail in the median between the two sides of the freeway, but there was no rail at all to protect you from going over the side. In Michigan there’s a guardrail if the dropoff is more than 5 feet. I guess folks down here must be more careful when they drive!

 

We entered Oklahoma around lunch time and stopped at another McDonald’s for lunch.

 

In Oklahoma, where there is grass, there will be cows. We must have passed thousands over the course of the day!

I think Oklahoma must hold the record for the most cattle fencing in one state. Literally every piece of property is fenced in with wire fencing.

 

Towards the southern part of OK, it started to get hilly. I just love the wide open spaces! There is so much room!

At 5:15 p.m. we crossed over into Texas! We’re home!