Crossing the Country Days 1 and 2: Virginia to Illinois

Driving almost 3000 miles with a toddler was a pretty daunting task, but it was exciting too. By the time all of our belongings were on the moving truck and our house was cleaned, we were ready to be on our way. We spent our last four nights in Virginia in a hotel because our house was empty, and it took us until night number 3 to finally figure out how to get Sarah to sleep in a hotel. The first 2 nights were absolutely awful, and we seriously feared for our sanity during our trip. It was a huge tender mercy when Kelson figured out that if he sent me away and laid down next to Sarah for a while she would actually go to sleep. That was a game changer.

On the first day of our trip, we had a bunch of things we had to finish up with the Navy before we could leave, so we got out of town pretty late.

By the time we made it to Richmond, an hour and a half down the road, Sarah was already antsy and ready to get out for a break.

 We picked a random park that showed up near the freeway on the GPS, which turned out to be absolutely amazing. They had a train, a firetruck, a playhouse, and all kinds of other things in the playground. Sarah has been asking to go back ever since. 

 The only way we pulled Sarah away from the playground was by telling her we could go see the geese. This particular goose turned out to be a little too friendly, and Daddy had to scare it away.

 We were very happy to make it to a comfortable hotel after 6 long hours in the car and a stop for dinner at a very redneck buffet in Covington, Virginia. We stayed the night just across the West Virginia border in Lewisburg. 

 We were officially sold on Holiday Inn Express after we saw their pancake machine the next morning. I need one at my house! It made a big difference to be able to start our day with a breakfast that Sarah would actually eat. After this, we started looking for Holiday Inn Express hotels at all of our stops.

 Sarah, Mommy, Elephant, and Clifford all ready to start day 2. 

 Driving through the Appalachian Mountains in West Virginia. We decided to take this route rather than driving further north because we had heard it was beautiful. West Virginia and Kentucky did not disappoint. The scenery there was our favorite of the whole trip. 

 Charleston, West Virginia, which had a very neat-looking State Capitol building.

 We somehow managed to find every kind of bad weather on this trip. For the first 3 days, we drove through off and on torrential rain and thunderstorms. At some points, it was like someone was just dumping giant buckets of water over our car, bringing the visibility to pretty much nothing. It was a little scary.

The rolling hills of West Virginia gave way to the picturesque, perfectly American farms of Kentucky. I can see why people want to live there. Beautiful! 

 Sarah refused to take a nap that afternoon, and by the time we got close to dinner time she was an absolute monster. Unfortunately, we were in the middle of nowhere Indiana, and there was absolutely nowhere to stop. When we finally saw a sign for a Denny's, we were overjoyed. It was in Dale, Indiana, which was apparently near where Abraham Lincoln grew up. Our cranky child threw up during dinner because she had so much food crammed in her cheeks. It was great fun. We quickly finished eating and got outside so that Sarah could run around for a while.

 Enjoying the view of Indiana 

 We got back in the car to finish the last of our drive for the day, and Sarah promptly fell asleep, allowing us to make some extra progress down the road in peace. A sleeping toddler is a sweet sight any time, but there is no better scenery when you are on a long road trip. Clifford was happy to act as a pillow.

As we entered the Midwest, we started seeing endless fields of yellow, which we learned was canola. It was interesting to see how much the landscape changes in just a few hours as you cross our country. There are so many different things to see!

We spent night number two in O'Fallon, Illinois, just outside St. Louis. It was a long day, and we were glad to carry the sleeping Sarah inside and tuck her in for the night.