Summer in Missouri – Part 1 (The Adventure of Getting There)

I’ve been putting off doing these blog entries for quite some time now, because honestly, it’s kind of overwhelming to me. How do I even begin to talk about our summer in Missouri without totally doing it an injustice? Our time there was every bit as great as we thought it would be, minus the fact that Matt wasn’t there to enjoy it with. So as I start out on this journey, bear in mind that there’s no way I’m going to hit it all or even come close to explaining just how wonderful a time we had...

Our trip to the Show-Me-State went amazingly smoothly. People here in Virginia and in Missouri couldn’t believe I was going to attempt this trip by myself with three kids and a dog. Maybe it was my hard-headedness, but I like to think it’s my independent side of me that knew I could do it. Being an air force wife has helped make me that way. If I never struck out on my own with the kids, we’d be home-bound so much of the time. I really never had a doubt that we could do it and that it would be fun! And we did and it was! We took three days to get there, whereas with Matt along, we do it in two long days. This plan worked perfectly for us because we were able to stop along the way as much as we wanted, and we got to our motels early enough in the day that we had plenty of time to eat a nice dinner and play in the pools.

On the first day, as we were driving along, just getting ready to cross the Virginia/West Virginia border, I saw a sign that said “Humpback Bridge”. It sounded interesting and we’d been in the car for quite awhile. I figured we’d stop and check it out. I’m so glad we did. It was such a great place! The kids are still talking about stopping there again when Matt is with us.

The kids loved wading in the water. They wanted to put on their suits and swim, but I told them that would have to wait until Daddy was with us.

Trying to catch the little shrimp that were along the bottom

Trin playing with the rocks. I still don’t know how I managed to get out of there with three dry children! (Ozzie stayed on his leash with me. No way was I going to have the smell of wet dog for the rest of the trip.)

Playing chase…getting as much energy out as we can!

On day two, our big sightseeing adventure came at lunchtime. By having Ozzie with us, our lunchtimes needed to be somewhere that he could get out with us because it was just too hot to leave him in the car for even a little bit. So we went through a drive-thru in Frankfort, KY and headed to a park nearby. However, it turns out what I thought was a park was actually a nature preserve. It was beautiful and after we ate our lunch, the kids, Ozzie and I enjoyed our time walking a few of the trails.

Hurst Falls at Cove Springs Park

On Day 3, the kids were so anxious to finally get to Missouri that no major sightseeing went on. We made it to my parents house by about 1:00 that afternoon and while we all had a great time on our journey, we were definitely ready to be out of the car for awhile. I really can’t praise my kids enough. They were so extremely good the whole trip. I could not have asked for anything better. 3 days in the car + over 1100 miles + 3 happy children = one estatic momma!