On Our Way

We left Klamath Falls on May 4, bound for Gulfport, Mississippi. Johan took over as Communications Commander so some training at Keesler AFB is in order. Unfortunately the last 5 week training course that the Air Force will ever offer is right now, just as baby A is due to arrive. So we all headed south together. After this final 5 week course the training turns into a 6 month course! 5 weeks sounds much better.

We weren't very ambitious in planning our drive. Most days we only spent about 8 hours on the road. The boys were great! But, this was a 2010 style road trip. Many mornings they were asking, "Can we get in the car yet?" There were movies, audio books, and Nintendo DS waiting. Johan and I reminded them a few times that we didn't have movies or audio books for our road trips. The boys would marvel, "What did you do?" We fondly remembered making up games and singing. So we would try that with the boys for a while, until we all realized it wasn't as great as we remembered it.

Our Day 1 goal had originally been to make it to Reno, a short 4 hour drive. But we didn't make our planned Monday departure, so we had to get to Salt Lake City in order to play a little catch up. Here we are at our day one lunch stop in South Eastern Oregon. We pulled off at Warner Canyon Ski Resort which was closed for the season. I had made plenty of chicken curry for chicken sandwiches (thank you for the excellent recipe Andrea). The boys ate and wandered doing their best to adhere to my request to not get muddy.

I had lofty plans to stop and take a picture at every state line... and to do lots of blogging about our trip. But at the time it seemed like too much trouble to stop and unload. So many, many valuable photo ops were skipped. I regret it now, but at the time making more miles seemed the better option. Consequently what I had intended to have as a well documented cross-country trip is little more than a collection of a few random pictures.

For day 2 we left Salt Lake City (after enjoying the hotel pool) and headed for Colorado Springs. Johan and I had forgotten how incredibly dramatic the Rocky Mountains are. Interstate 70 from Salt Lake City to Denver took us through an absolutely amazing canyon in western Colorado. After leaving Rifle, Colorado the interstate winds through incredible terrain, not to mention the impressive engineering of the interstate itself. Sadly...no pictures.

We didn't get to Denver until it was already dark, but we were stunned by the growth. Although it seems like yesterday that we lived in Colorado, we realized that over 12 years have passed. From Denver we headed south on I-25 and could not believe how much has changed. If you are familiar with that part of the country you may remember that not so long ago Denver and Castle Rock were completely separate cities. Castle Rock being the sleepy little town between Denver and Colorado Springs. Not so anymore, the two are practically suburbs of one another. An eight lane freeway now connects Denver to Castle Rock and there are not more than 10 miles of undeveloped land on the outskirts of Castle Rock. Colorado Springs too has stretched north.

We decided to spend day 3 in Colorado Springs. We took the boys to visit the Air Force Academy and checked out the town. The boys were excited to see where Papa went to school. We felt our age however, as we realized that the kids attending the Air Force Academy today were born the year Johan graduated from high school. Post 9-11 security has reached the Air Force Academy so a lot of the areas that Johan wanted to share with the boys were off limits. We did visit the chapel, and hike around a bit. The static aircraft displays were exciting for the boys.

I was most impressed with how this picture, taken with a new lens and filter for our camera, turned out. The image is so crisp, it looks like a cartoon to me.

We were back on the road for day 4. This time we stopped at another of Johan's former schools. Wichita Falls, Texas is home to Sheppard Air Force Base, where Johan went to pilot training. We skipped the base, but did drive through some beautiful neighborhoods. We pulled a few real-estate fliers from what in Klamath Falls would be million dollar homes, selling in Texas for just under $400,000. How is that even possible????

A favorite rest stop activity for the boys was playing football with Johan. Here they are at a Texas rest stop. Unfortunately I did not get any pictures of the actual football.

On day 5 we stopped in Fort Worth for lunch at this local treasure.

The only thing on the menu is fried chicken or chicken fried steak. Everything is served family style and your fried chicken comes with all the salad, corn, mashed potatoes, gravy and biscuits you can eat. I've already gained 50 pounds...so there was nothing to stop me. The chicken was delicious, the salad, and corn, well above average, the mashed potatoes were heavenly, but the biscuits! It should be illegal to offer a pregnant woman unlimited biscuits fresh from the oven with warm butter and honey. And mashed potatoes, really!?! Whoever first decided to mash up some roots, add in butter and cream, and top them with the fat drippings of chicken really was a genius. If you are ever in the Fort Worth area and have several thousand calories to spare please stop in at Babe's.

We spent the night in Shreveport, Louisiana. Our hotel was right on this newly constructed Riverwalk with a mall and quite a few restaurants. Here are the boys in front of the Mississippi river. Any mention of Mississippi the state or the river will now throw K into a lively sing-song spelling of M-I-S-S-I-S-S-I-P-P-I.

After Shreveport it was a short six hour drive to our condo in Gulfport. We made it in time to catch the evening mass on Sunday!