Where To Start?

Well, I guess the best place to start would be at the beginning, right??  Hahaha.  But where exactly should we define "the beginning" of our road trip?  I don't know if it would necessarily be Day 1 of the trip, because the planning and prepping for it have been going on for a while now, but I doubt that our final phase of prep in the days before we left are all that interesting to anyone.  {To sum it up, we spent a long morning at Walmart, stocking up on accoutrements for everyone's road trip binders (i.e. pens, pencils, dry erase markers, etc.), making sure everyone had headphones/earbuds for their various devices, and amassing MASSIVE amounts of snacks and treats to make our 20+ hour drive more palatable.  As a sidenote, we totally succeeded on that last one.  The sleeper hit of treats?  Tootise Rolls -- the midgees.  Who knew?  Hahaha.  Also on our pre-trip agenda:  Grace selling Alex and Jane her old iPod and iPhone (respectively) in order to accrue enough money with her babysitting loot to buy herself a brand-new phone of her own -- the iPhone XR.}

Roll out!

Friday the 21st of June is when we officially got our road trip party started and we left that afternoon/evening as soon as Scott got home from work.  Granted he came home from work a lot earlier than he would on any normal Friday, but our main objective was to get at least a few hours of driving under our belts before the sun had set, and we made it to Oklahoma City with enough time to take a water taxi tour of "Bricktown" before it closed for the night.

Unfortunately, it probably would have been best if we had eaten dinner before embarking on our ride, but I guess you live and you learn, right??  Haha.  Although, we certainly should have already learned that lesson by now.  For the first little bit of our "taxi ride," however, we had a lovely dusky view of downtown Brickopolis complete with a tour guide who was really working for those tips with his dad jokes and commentary.  By the end of the ride, though, we were all miserably hot and sweaty and bordering on hangry to boot.

 Monuments depicting the great land rush.

As we headed back to our hotel, we attempted to find somewhere along the way to eat, but it was getting too late and our options grew even slimmer as we left the downtown area.  We ended up finding a Sonic -- which was no one's top preference, but it was after 10 o'clock and we didn't see anything else -- and put in a ginormous order for corn dogs along with some tots and drinks for us all.  {Fun fact: When Scott placed the order for 10 corn dogs, the employee did a verbal double take and responded with an incredulous, "HOW many??"  Hahahaha.  It made us all laugh.  But maybe you would've had to have been there.}


We finally made it to the hotel and after sorting out who was sleeping where, we collapsed into our beds for an exhausted night's sleep.  I slept with the 3 girls that first night and vowed never to do it again.  They were so obnoxiously giggly and wouldn't stop talking that I just about lost my mind before they finally went to sleep.  Scott, meanwhile, was dealing with his own issues, as Isaac was wanting me half the night.  The only thing that might have been worse is if we had all been crammed together in one room and had to deal with 6 obnoxious kids at the same time.  Hahaha.  All in all, it was a memorable first night on the road.  ;)

Up next?  Getting our kicks on Route 66...