This lake spanned for miles and is now basically a puddle of its former self. The camp sites were shockingly deserted and the wind was a pretty consistent 20-25 mph. Add all those factors together and you get Becksforts back on the road, headed for a motel.
We did pass Cadillac Ranch and all the kids signed and decorated with Sharpies. Jillian was doing her best to make some logical sense out of Cadillacs buried in the ground for people to decorate. None to be found dear, none to be found. Just fun.
After we crashed in a Route 66 motel for the night, we got up and headed to Lake Eufaualah or something like that in Oklahoma. They still have water in Oklahoma, so that worked out well. the kids swam in the lake and we had smores by the fire and used glow necklaces and Jillian's sword from Disneyland to have a fun late night there. Ali was just about done with bugs at this point though. There's only so much nature a 10 year old girl can handle and the gross factor (as well as the tired factor) were starting to affect her ability to not freak out.
We made our way to Memphis, Tennessee where we turned south to stay at a Jellystone just across the border in Mississippi. We had heard that Jellystones were great for kids, so we thought it would be a treat for our last night camping. It was a great place to stay. They had inflatable water slides and a great pool. There were lots of playgrounds and other kids too. We were the only tent campers but it wasn't as hot as it had been so we were fine. We camped right next to a pond where there were baby toads and tree frogs all over our campsite. We couldn't have planned a better place for the kids to be entertained.
We had planned a Grand "Last Day" for our adventure. We were going to let the kids play in the morning, have a big breakfast, and then head out to Nashville where we were going to stop at an ice cream joint recommended by Taylor Swift herself. We were then going to head up to Louisville and go see the giant Louisville Slugger baseball bat thing that Mike wanted to do and then drive the rest of the way home.
What ended up happening was: we saw the weather report.
It was a 40% chance of severe thunderstorms starting at 6am.
Bleh, who wants to spend the last morning of the trip taking down the tent in pouring rain? so... new plan. We got up at 5, broke camp and were on the road by a little after 6 with pop tarts for breakfast. Now the ice cream place didn't open till noon, so we didn't want to sit in the parking lot waiting for 4 hours so we decided to press on. The more we pressed on and the closer we got, the less we wanted to stop and do other stuff, so we just drove home.
Coming home was precious because we have been blessed with incredible friends. Our house was cleaned, our laundry was done, our fridge was stocked, googly eyes were attached to all sorts of funny things around the house, pictures of Hippie Phil Collins were taped in places to startle us, and all of our silverware was frozen in a clump. My favorite part is that it's not just one friend who is so entertaining and wonderful, it's that God has blessed us with many different friends who bring this fun and blessings to our lives.
