Channel Mike

Thursday, May 31st, 2007

We got started about a half hour late, but not nearly as late as we could have. Everything went well except for the expected hitch of Emma running around in her underwear after being asked to get a shirt on about five times. Once that was done, we were on our way.

It took us about an hour to get to Vicksburg, our first National Park. We were able to buy our annual park pass for use the rest of this summer and we walked around and stretched our legs in a really beautiful place. It looked interesting, but we decided to move on since we could visit Vicksburg another time.

About an hour later, 11:00am by now, and some pretty rough farm roads, and we arrived at Poverty Point Historic Site in Epps, Louisiana. It was interesting to hear about some of the excavations and about some of the things that have been unearthed there. It's a site of a civilization that existed in about 1600 BC, nearly as old as Stonehenge, and a millennium earlier than the ancient Greeks. We bought some little arrowheads for the kids and took a picture after taking the train ride tour around the site.

I had been meaning to get the oil changed in the Pathfinder for at least a week prior to leaving, but didn't get it done. On the way from Poverty Point to the freeway, I saw a small auto shop that was empty and I thought we could zip in for a quick oil change and be on our way. This gave me the rare opportunity of awakening a southern redneck from his nap on his dirty couch in the lobby of his auto shop. He nearly knocked over his beer bottle full of sunflower shells. But when I asked him how long it would take, he asked if I brought my own oil and filter. Needless to say, we had to leave without an oil change.

About an hour and a half later, driving through Monroe, I spotted a Nissan dealership, so we popped off of the freeway, stopped in, and had the oil changed for real. They even had oil filters and oil. Unfortunately, by the time they were done, I had been chasing kids through a car showroom for about 40 minutes and was ready to just kill them all and dump them in a bayou somewhere.

It didn't take long for them to get settled into the car and Emma started posing for Jak's pictures. Audrey joined in, too. From there, we just kept on driving for another 4 hours, aside from two or three bathroom or seatbelt readjustment stops, all the way to Dallas. We showed up at Chipotle by about 8:00pm. And we made it to the hotel by about 9:30pm.

Audrey and Emma have now been bouncing off of the headboards for nearly an hour straight. Yikes. They just won't settle down. We've tried TV. We've tried quiet. We've tried lights; no lights. They're finally starting to quiet down with all the lights out and the TV off. 10:40pm. I hope they sleep soundly. Jak has already mentioned his concern about sleeping in the same room as my nose and throat. I hope we all get along. We may be pretty tired by the time we hit Utah. We'll see.

Tomorrow, it's off to Carlsbad Caverns!