Day 1

Here we are the first "official" day of vacation. We still have about 1/2 the drive left, so lets hope all goes well.

Small hotel room so when one person wakes up, we all do. I think I was actually the first one up around 6:30am. But I tired to be quiet to give the others some more rest. Well it wasn't long before Ms Stella was "maaaa maaa maaa"ing for us to get up.

So we pack up our things and make our way down to the breakfast in the lobby. I love how they corral everyone into as small of an area as possible. I am surprised there are not more fights at these things. Oh well. We hit the road at 9:25(right on time again!)

Arrive at the Zoo a bit early(11:45), traffic was pretty light and I was able to go quite quickly (80+), and yet still get passed. I do love the 70MPH Speed Limit thru. Again the 2nd leg of the trip went very smoothly. Stella did her own thing again and Elijah listened to a Magic Tree House book.

The Zoo was HOT HOT HOT HOT! So needless to say we didn't stay too long, and tried to find as many things as possible to look at in-door.

But it was still enjoyable.


No I didn't make prego do "all" the work.
Llamaaaaaaaaa....... Elijah said, oh look a Camel at first..
Crazy goats.
Elijah finally saw his first "wild" cow!
And then milked one.
Super Strong Elijah.
So HOT!
Remember these statues from last time. Elijah was only 3 then.Crazy Monkeys

Poor little Smellas is tired and hot so we head back to the gate.

So we leave the Zoo about 1:30pm. It is only about 3hrs till we get to the hotel, so we decide to try to drive all the way thru, with no more stops.

Unfortunately this time things didn't work out quite as well. First there was a wreck on I-26 which caused us to lose about 30mins. The biggest problem is that Stells was tired and fell right asleep and then was up and ready to go in about 90mins. But we were hardly any farther then when we started. After we got thru got going again, I was able to get back a little time.

Finally I see daylight ahead of the tunnel. we are only about 20miles from the hotel, and them BAM!! Bumper to Bumper for the next 15 miles. It was such a teaser, "Almost there, Sike just kidding" We fight thru the traffic and weeeeee we make it.

Unload the car, and it doesn't take long to make ourselves at home.


Eventually Ted, Karen and the kids make it too. (They were the last to arrive). We order pizza, put the kids to bed and then play up and down the river till 1am.