wide open spaces

hello everyone,

we have made it to NEVADA! that's just one state from home for those of you who are geographically challenged. we have stopped for the night in Ely (pronounced ee-lee). we found a decent motel room and are heading to bed early so we can get to TAHOE tomorrow!! my mom got us a room at the Marriott Grand Residence for our last night on the road! thanks gaga!!! we hope to get there in time to enjoy the sun by the pool. it's 'only' a 6 1/2 hour drive from here.

we will post pictures tomorrow...they are just a bunch of 'wide open spaces' shots anyway, so check back with us tomorrow!

thanks!!

see you on the road,

lauren

ps health update: jenn's side feels better but she is mildly ill from some medicine she is taking and i, lauren have a nasty sore throat that i hope will be all better in the morning.

we ain't in kansas anymore!!

hello faithful followers,

tonight we are in idaho springs, not colorado springs. no we didn't get lost...well not exactly lost. let me review the day for you.

we started the day in lawrence, KS. it turned out to be a nice little town and after a stop at starbucks we were on the road heading west.

andrew started off driving duties.

we were pleasantly surprised that the eastern third or so of kansas is rather pretty. rolling hills, farms etc. we enjoyed this part of the drive very much.

this was the first california license plate that we had seen since texas!

we passed fort riley. nice line of hummers! i really, really want one of these. not a housewife hummer, a REAL one!

someone said something about the wind in kansas. it wasn't bad today but at least they are making use of it.

so much for the beautiful rolling hills!

did someone say corn, and corn and more corn...

flat as a pancake... or should i say a corn cake!

we didn't have time to stop and see the 800 lb. prairie dog... maybe next time.

i guess someone else is tired of kansas... wonder where they are moving?

some 'fun with the camera' shots!

not sure what he is doing here???

tom wanted to get the person passing us in the shot too (see, i'm not the fastest driver on the road!)

thanks....doubt it.

on to colorado. ha! never saw the 'color' part of 'color-ado'. :o)

kinda looks like kansas.

the welcome center. we didn't stop but tom got a good picture as we whizzed by.

the most beautiful sign in the U.S. of A!

jenn, entertaining her brother jimmy with her straw drinking skills.

it was a long day on the road! you have to find something to do!

a train!

with a CABOOSE!!!!

wait, this must be a different train...it's going the opposite direction!

denver! this is just how i like big cities...at a distance!

we had wild skies all day.

we have all gotten good at reading in the car. except for tom, he still gets sick.

golden, CO

so if you noticed, we decided not to go the colorado springs. we stayed on interstate 70 and took the turn off to golden. it is yet another cute little town. we started looking for a hotel...it's a college town...one would think that there would be a hotel....must be a hotel...we found a radio shack and replaced my lost phone charger....we found a big 5 and jimmy bought a knife....we looked all over this cute little town, BUT....no hotel. AND the coors factory is closed for tours, what to do?

we headed back out to the highway and continued west...there has got to be a hotel on the outskirts of town. so off we went...

this is where we went. not looking like the edge of anything and certainly not any hotels in sight. but we kept going. it turned out to be a beautiful drive, of course we had no idea to where and how long it would take us to get there. for all we knew it was a 10 hour ride over the rockies....oh well, hang on, mama's driving!

still trying to find where we were. no service on the i phone added to the adventure!

and this is where we ended up! a little gold rush town called idaho springs! while we were driving i was chatting with God and telling i was excited to see where He was taking us and we ended up in this adorable little town tucking in a steep valley. AND we are right next to interstate 70 which will take us out to ely, NV tomorrow! God is so cool!

now we were somewhere but we still didn't see any hotels...a little driving around town (which didn't take long) and we found the cutest place...

did i already say God is so good!

our cozy room.

and yes there is ivy growing along the bottom of the door.

my cute husband!!

our faithful ride. now if she will just get us over the rockies and the sierra nevadas it will be all downhill from there!!!!!

thank you for reading...everyone is asleep and one person is sawing logs...i think i will join them.

if you feel like praying a bit tonight...jenn isn't feeling well and is having left flank pain. pray that it isn't a kidney thing and that she feels better in the morning! thanks!

see you on the road!!

lauren

P.S. PRAISE THE LORD!!!! i accidently quit safari and thought that i lost all of this! 0_0 but when i signed back in, it had saved to drafts. yeah!!!!! good night!

we are finally out of misery, i mean missouri

hello dear followers,

yes, i am not capitalizing...i don't like to...i can't coordinate the shift key with the letter key and it makes me crazy.....so there.

so we got up as quickly as we could without the help of the fire alarm and just had to head back onto the historic franklin downtown. yes there was a starbucks near our hotel but we made the 10 minute drive to franklin anyway.

part of the beautiful drive through the new part of franklin.

the outskirts of town. this is a huge horse ranch.

same horse ranch.

downtown franklin

jimmy was our first driver for the day. between jimmy, jenn, tom and me we did about 9 hours of driving. not too bad with so many drivers.

second state of the day!

we stopped at taco bell cuz jenn was starving. once again we were stared at. we can't figure it out, it's like we are from mars or something. come to think of it jenn was wearing a 'save the tatas' t-shirt....humm. i did have a nice conversation with a kentucky-ite while in line. he was a very nice gentleman and we had quite a long conversation since things move at an entirely different speed in kentucky. i think this is where the saying 'as slow as molasses in january' came from. we did enjoy one thing on this stop...it wasn't very humid! it was still 90 degrees or something but it actually felt cool! this helicopter was 'parked' out front. cool, i wish i could take my helicopter to taco bell.

this is a cool bridge over the river that goes between kentucky and illinois (someone tell me which one, i have forgotten, too many rivers, too many cities, too many highways, too many miles etc. etc....) anyway, it's a cool bridge...

and it took us into our 3rd state of the day, illinois!

driving, driving, driving....

so there was this red spot in the clouds (and some yellow which didn't pick up as well) and this was in the middle of the day....weird.

st. louis arch.

and our 4th state, missouri.

from a distance st. louis is beautiful...up close not so much :0(

it looked like everyone up and left and the place is literally falling down. this wasn't a small area, it went on for miles. does anyone know the history of this area? and people were still living amongst this....weird.

pretty sky (obviously). have i mentioned that the co-pilot has to have the camera ready at all times to snap shots as we go along?

more prettiness.

ta da! our 5th state of the day, kansas!

kansas city.

boredom in the car and yes andrew's hair is getting long!

lovely!

and this is the way that he walked into the hotel....no, we aren't from california! go ahead and stare!!

so here we are in kansas nicely tucked into our hotel room. tom and the boys have gone swimming and it's time to go night night. tomorrow we head to colorado springs! another long day but the scenery will be beautiful!!!

good night!

see you on the road!

lauren

p.s. i could only think of the descriptive terms of 'cool' and 'weird'...sorry...that's weird...i guess i am tired.