Road Trip of 2008: You are about to see a very long post!

Well ya'll we made it. It was a long journey, but worth the ride. Here are some pictures of our adventures. Oh and by the way some pictures are a little blurrier than others because they are from my picture phone. Enjoy.


Our navigator.
Our first stop in New Mexico. Honestly I don't remember now which city this is, but it was right before Albuquerque on route 66. They had this great park there so we let the kids play a while. Good idea!

Crossing the state line of Texas. We reached Amarillo TX at about 10pm. John felt right at home when he was in the lobby. He was talking to the hotel employee asking them where a tire shop was (we decided to put new tire on to be safe). Well another guy came in who had blow a tire and was towed in. John grinned when this very well dressed, young guy with his Mercedes walks up and says in a Texas draw, "Do ya'll know where the closest tir' place is?" Classic.


So big, swimming in our Amarillo hotel. Here are the boys spray painting the fence at Cadillac Ranch in Texas. A must see on Route 66. I thought my sister Becca would think this was funny. Tata ha! Welcome to Oklahoma. You are about to drive through the fire and brimstone Baptist states of the US. Can I just mention that I didn't see a single LDS church building from New Mexico on. It was kind of weird. This cross had a bunch of regular size crosses around it for you to go up and try to carry. It was to remind people of how heavy the cross was that Christ had to carry. Oklahoma was probably the worst state we drove through. For starters we went from bottom left to upper right so it felt like we were there forever. Then they have all these toll roads and they get sooo expensive. I think we paid almost $20 in tolls. We had no idea. We were scrapping pennies literally at one point and the guy finally just let us through .23 cents short. That was a trip. Into Missouri, I had a hard time knowing when the state lines were coming up. I kept forgetting to get out my camera or we would drive by too fast. Bummer. Still entertained.
That sign was a fun little gem to find. We also witnessed an almost car accident in front of this place. A car hit the bumper of another car on the highway, which means they were going about 75 mph. The back car kept driving and the front car slammed on his breaks. They were ok though. Here we are at Grandma Ross' house in Springfield Missouri. John's cousin Julie came over with her son Truman (in blue)to play and visit. Then later his Uncle Tom (Julie's dad) brought his other grandson Charlie (in red). Truman is about 18 months old and Charlie is 2. John, Boston, Uncle Tom Ross, Charlie Ross, Aunt Toot Ross with Rendon, & Julie with her son Truman. This is the next generation of Ross boys. It was cool to have them all together at one time.
Grandma Ross' house.
Grandma with her great grandsons. We also got to visit Grandma Taylor for a little while. Her house is full of cookie jars and other glass items. Needless to say John and I were a nervous wreck the entire visit. St. Louise MO. I couldn't get a very good picture, but this arch is huge! We were still quit a few miles away from it here. The rest is video taped. Sorry. Into Illinois. It was really starting to get beautiful here. Lots of farm lands and forest. There were red barns everywhere. We stayed the night in Greenville IL. Boston wanted to go to a pizza place so bad but all they had was a pizza hut inside a gas station. We went swimming at the hotel instead. Coming into Indiana. Look at all the trees. The trees were so dense you couldn't even see past the first row of trees. It was so crazy. Every so often you would see these massive towers (cell phone? telephone? I don't know) towering above these already huge trees. A McDonald break in Indiana. We decided to go play in this field next to it. The kids loved it. The grass was so soft and they had all these flowers I had never seen before.
Can you guess where we are now? Getting sick of the car now. Me too guys, me too. This was exciting to see. I can't believe how far we've come. So this was Friday July 18th. My birthday (yeah, confetti). John had us stay in a Westin hotel this night. We stayed in the executive suite and it was so nice. Even Boston said "Wow mom this is a really nice place." He's got good taste. :)Columbus OHThe hotel management sent us down to German village for dinner. I love this place! I would live here. The sidewalks were brick. The houses were so neat. They had beautifully manicured flowers everywhere. They had all these great shops up and down the street too. John and I loved it so much we were pulling out fliers from homes for sale. When we asked our waitress about the prices she said "Oh its kind of expensive here, I mean you can rent a 2 bedroom 2 bathroom for $700 a month." We just laughed. We found out later from a resident outside watering his flowers that it just depended on the house. A 3 bedroom 2 bath across the street that was updated sold for $500, 000. The library in German Village. So pretty. This is were we ate at, Max & Erma's. This was an amazing park at the end of German Village. It had huge old Oak trees. There was a dog group there with like 20 dogs. Rendon loved it. They also had a free Shakespearean play going on in the amphitheatre and there were people out playing tennis and such. As we were leaving at dusk all the fire fly's started coming out. I was so cool. It reminded me of the movie Lady and the Tramp.
That night back at the hotel John & I took advantage of the free bottled water. Well later I come in to find Boston making himself a drink. This kid is such a character. He even used the tongs to get his ice and put the plastic stir stick in his drink. Woo hoo, we are getting closer. We actually only drove through WV for about 15 miles. We were on the upper tip. Driving over the Ben Franklin bridge in Philadelphia. Were so close!
This was Boston's reaction when I told him we had just arrived in New Jersey. Can you tell I was sitting in the back seat. We were sooo ready to be there. And here we are. This was about 9 or 10pm on Saturday July 19th. We stayed at a hotel that night. Look how pretty our kitchen is.

That is until the movers arrived Sunday morning. So far we love it here. Great weather, friendly people, and I love our apartment. Thank goodness. We met our ward last Sunday and there were like 5 people from AZ. There is a lot a military here. One of the missionaries in our ward knows my mom and Becca from Mesa high. That was funny. The ward is so friendly and they have a mothers play group. There is even a family that lives in the apartments across from ours that has 5 kids. 3 of them are triplet girls Boston's age. Jackpot! We are having a great time. Thanks to everyone for there encouragement and well wishes. We miss you all.