On the road

We made it a full 24 hours on the road and so far, only half of us have gotten lost got once (and that was totally my fault.  More on that story later).

We’re in Amarillo, Texas grabbing dinner at Jason’s Deli.  They’re pretty awesome to let a group of 55 crash their restaurant at 9p.m. when they close at 10.  Everyone’s really glad to get out of the car and stretch.  Oklahoma is a L-O-N-G state, especially in the rain.

Amazingly, we actually left Big Rapids almost on time yesterday.  After stopping to pick up Emily P. in Kalamazoo and Mike and Chris P. in Dowagiac area, we were on the open road. The extra seats are really helpful for those trying to sleep (although looking at all of our faces tonight, most of us really haven’t slept much).  We met Michigan Tech in Bloomington, IL around midnight last night and started our cross-country tour of Wal-Mart while we were waiting for them.  The suggestion for our extra-long stop last night was to do everything on the “How to Get Kicked out of Wal-Mart” list.  However, Steak’n’Shake was a more appealing spot to hang out for the 2 hours for most people while the rest of us fell asleep on the van seats.  The search for the sketchiest Wal-Mart in the U.S. continues. 

 We’ve made it through Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri (which we nicknamed Misery), and Oklahoma.  Everyone cheered when we finally crossed into Texas!  Everyone seems to be doing well.  Attitudes are really good, no one’s hair is too messy yet and so far the cold/congested head stuff hasn’t been spreading more!  That is a huge praise!  We’re all ready to get to Roswell and sleep on a flat, non-moving surface.  Especially my 6’ brothers and cousins who have been complaining since Michigan about the lack of room in the vans (and they have the most room of all because we only have 12 in our van and not the full 15! Joe and I keep telling them they’re wimps.)  However, none of us are looking forward to the time change tonight and the loss of an hour’s sleep.

So far, the consensus on the vans is that while the extra seats in Vans 1 and 2 are great, the “crevaces” (the narrow strip between the van doors and the seats) are all a lot smaller than they used to be. Mitch has gotten it to work well once and then Tanner fell off the seat and sat on him. Jon S. also found that lying behind the front seats on the floor isn’t a great option when Joe’s driving (mostly cause Joe’s taller than Jon by a lot) and because the first aid backpack falls easily and lands on him, but only after he’s already asleep. 

The only mishap we’ve had on the trip so far was when I accidentally started following the wrong van with red lettering on the back.  They got off in the middle of Tulsa, OK and I followed them off of I-44, only to realize that there was only one van I was following and it wasn’t Mitch.  After trying to reconfigure our GPS (aka Yoda) and leading Michigan Tech around the back streets of Tulsa (Yoda didn't like me and the feeling was pretty mutual), we finally made it back onto I-44 only to get caught in a massive construction zone.  Mitch and Emily wound up waiting for us on the shoulder for us to catch up the 6 miles we fell behind. (It was a long 6 miles!) My co-pilots were very attentive in helping me watch for the right vans after that.

Some random discoveries from this trip:

·         *The strawberry Mentos taste like Pepto-Bismol, no matter which roll they come out of.

·         *It’s getting confusing at every break because we have two Cassie’s, two Kelly’s (a Kelly and a Keleigh), two Mike’s, two Brandon’s, two Justin’s, two Nate’s and two Kathryn’s, a Daniel and a Danielle, a Sam and a Samantha but only one Susie. (Usually Susie answers to Faith but every time I’ve talked to her tonight, she’s only answered to Susie).   As I’m typing this, the waiter is double-checking every name to see if there’s another duplicate. He’s enjoying the game he’s creating out of it!

·        * Grandma Bea’s cookies are awesome.  The shortbread cookies in Lunchables are not.

·        * It’s hard to dance to “Cotton-Eyed Joe” in a van, but almost everyone in Van 2 knows all of the words to the Frozen soundtrack.

·       *  The back of Van 3 is jamming out to music and telling stories while the front seats are sleeping. 

      We’re all having a great time, enjoying meeting new people and excited to be in Mexico.  Mitch  and Joe discovered that the houses this year will bring the total of houses built for Casas by His House students to 36! Praise God!

      

     As I’m finally finding wifi to upload this, it is 1:55am  local time and the time change hits us in 5 minutes (ugh. Remind me why springing forward is a good thing?)  We are all settled into our rooms at the Super 8 in Roswell for a few hours before getting on the road again.  The wifi tether on the phones isn’t working this year, so blog updates will be spottier than last year, but they will be posted as often as we can.

Thank you for your prayers!  We love you!