Day 45 - The End

I was up early with the fog today. It was quiet and I was sad. After all this constant moving, our last day was here. After checking our route we even had a short drive of only 3 hours. We were all anxious to sleep in our own beds and take "real" showers, but I definitely wasn't ready for the trip to be over.

Once we were up Dave and I packed up for the last time. After popping into the RV to check in with Grammie the kids reported back that the inside of the RV looked weird with all the linens put away and all the kid stuff gone.

While Grammie showered we all sat down for a delicious breakfast. The kids played and Dave explored for a little while once we were full.  Somehow they always seem to find swords or bow and arrows to keep us safe. Brayden and Ryan have been enjoying Lord of the Rings, so today it was bows and arrows!

We all pitched in to help Grammie finish disconnecting and getting ready for our final leg home. Although it was a short drive, we didn't want to get home too terribly late so we left the campground around 11.

We passed many of the same places this day as our first through Mississippi and Alabama. Dave was disappointed our route wasn't taking us anywhere near Prestler's Pecans in Alabama. I guess we'll just have to stop by on another trip!

We arrived at Grammie's house in mid-afternoon greeted by Austin, Milo and Peepaw. We'd lost Grammie on some backroad in Alabama but she finally arrived about 20 minutes later. I asked her if she was glad to be home. She shook her head yes and then asked when we leave again. So I guess that answers whether Grammie enjoyed the trip!

We made it to our house and were unpacked within and hour. I started the first load of laundry within minutes hoping to conquer the mountain of clothes as soon as possible. Unfortunately for Brayden and Ryan, they had soccer practice this evening so they left a couple hours after we got home. Fortunately for me, that allowed uninterrupted time for me to finish the laundry! Definitely not the favorite activity I would have chosen as we got back, but I was thrilled to have it all finished and folded by early that evening.

We all went to bed early, eager to get into our own beds. Most nights I will hear the kids chatting after bedtime but tonight was silent.

Day 44

We forget once we're in the south that putting four bodies in one tent might be a little warm. Gone are the extra blankets. Gone are the sleep pants and sleeping bags. We were definitely back in the heat and humidity even at night.

I got up before the sun this morning to edit pictures and write as I knew once we got home I would have zero time for such things (I was right!!). We had no big museums left and no awesome attractions to hurry to get on the road to see. We had one of those rare days where we could be spontaneous and do whatever the kids wanted. Of course after breakfast the kids wanted to play campball. This was quite possibly our last game so we wanted it to be a good one. While we were waiting on Grammie, Dave and Ryan decided to have a campball duel. It didn't end well for either of them!

We picked teams - Brayden, Laney, and me against Dave, Grammie and Ryan. We'd had trouble the entire trip trying to make the teams somewhat even. The adults sometimes ran a little extra slow to help with that, but these darn kids are so competitive sometimes it didn't matter what we did (or didn't!)!

All the players were finally connecting with the ball and the game was heated. Team Grammie was beating us pretty bad so I was trying to relax the rules a little bit for Laney but Ryan called me on it. We had to forge ahead and attempt to win fair and square.

Team Grammie ended up winning in a big way so we practiced being good sports and shook hands when we all really just wanted to go throw them in the lake.  These pictures crack me up today as both of these boys are no longer furry!

On our way out of the park, we stopped by the visitor's center because I'd noticed a discovery center next door. The kids were excited to explore and they ended up learning quite a bit about the Trail of Tears. We also learned about many of the plants and animals native to the area as well as the geology from the past million years or so.










Once the kids got their buttons for finishing their ranger books we got on the road for our last long drive. Our drive was about 6 hours and we only stopped for gas. It wasn't as bad of a drive as Oklahoma or northern Montana, but I was more than thrilled it was the last one of the trip. We arrived at our next spot at dusk to set up one more time and have dinner. We were situated on a lake once more with a nice view of jumping fish!

I spent some time reorganizing a few things in the car we had haphazardly stuffed in unstrategic places. We settled down in our tents with countdowns from the kids. They were down to how many hours it would be until we got home.

Day 43

It's been awhile I know. Rest assured we are not stuck without communications in St Louis. We have been home for a few weeks but I'm just getting a few minutes to breathe and write. Sadly some of what we experienced has slipped my old mind, but thanks to some notes I'll still be able to include most of what we did.

We were up early this day and eating cereal for breakfast to get on the road early once again. We didn't have a terribly long drive, but we had a must-stop museum in Memphis - the Civil Rights Museum. We'd studied the Civil Rights Movement during our modern history year last year so the kids were familiar with it. I'd actually been to this museum about 15 years ago so I knew they would really enjoy and learn a bunch. Dave wouldn't be able to join us this day as he would be working at a coffee shop around the corner.

This museum is actually housed partially in the hotel where Martin Luther King, Jr. was staying when he was shot. Immediately as I walked into the museum I knew things had changed drastically. The tour I remember issued each person an audio player that guided them through the museum but apparently the museum had been updated since then. We first went into a room with photographs taken at the 1957 Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom in Washington D.C. Sadly, this room of photographs was never allowed to be published into recently.

We began our tour learning about how slaves were brought to the country and who benefited from their labor. We'd spent a lot of time on this subject in our studies and I was glad the kids recognized and remembered much of what we'd learned.  Next we went to a movie about the Jim Crow laws to learn more about life in the 1950s and 1960s.  As we walked out Grammie began to talk to the kids about her experiences growing up in that time frame. The kids couldn't believe some of what they were reading and hearing.

The museum was now set up in a way to provide a full history building up to the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. There were many events I'd never even heard of that played big parts in the movement. The kids were especially interested in the integration of the schools and how the children were treated.

We spent the next few hours reading and learning all about the events and what it was like to grow up in this time of prejudice, hate, and violence. There aren't really words to describe the shock and sadness I felt going through this museum. I don't think the kids felt it quite as much as they were skimming the exhibits in the rooms after about halfway. 

The end of the museum details the last day in Martin Luther King, Jr's life and you are led to a display of the actual rooms where he was staying when he was shot. Everyone was silent as they read the timeline of the day hour by hour and looked into the room where they'd been sitting there talking and joking that day.

We exited the museum to another area with exhibits of current day issues and displays of winners of the Civil Rights Museum's Freedom Awards. We didn't spend too much time here as we were already over our time I'd told Dave we would take.  I took a quick picture of the outside of the museum showing the hotel rooms and original cars parked there.

We all grabbed a quick snack and hopped back into the car for our hour drive to our next campsite. We were back in Arkansas for a night before making our way closer to home.  We arrived to a mostly empty campground and set up pretty quickly. There was quite a bit of mud around our spot so we decided to just set up one tent on the gravel so we would be sleeping with two stinky girls.

We were nestled high up off of a lake in our own private little loop. After a quick dinner we played about 4 minutes of camp ball before it just got too dark. We promised the kids we would play in the morning as we didn't have much of a rush to get anywhere for the rest of the trip.

We decided instead to play some cards for a little while on the picnic table. At one point I thought Lola had fallen off the edge of the small cliff until I saw instead she'd treed a raccoon that was now peering at me halfway up the tree. The kids sung their "awwwwws" and we retired to the RV to get away from the bugs. After a few more rounds of cards we retired to the tent with the girls for the night.