Road to Hanover: Day SIX

DAY SIX: Nauvoo, IL to Cleveland, OH

Our next started out pretty much at our standard time: 10am start once packed and ready to move.  Day six encompassed a pretty boring day that included driving, driving and yet more driving. Here are the highlights/lowlights of the day.

#1: (highlight) During our lunch break, we stopped at McDonald's {which by the way, I don't think I ever want to eat McDonald's again after our many lunch/dinner stops at that joint} and the kids were so cute sitting on these bar stools together.  I had this really adorable grandma come up to me while we were eating and say that she was very impressed with how well behaved my children were.  This filled me with pride, because normally my kids are the crazy, misbehaved ones running circles around the restaurant....especially during this trip due to being in the car so long every day. 

 Miss Maddie, Robby, and Eli

#2: (highlight) Jesse and I were totally addicted to Reese's Pieces during our trip.  We looked for these at almost every gas break.  Then on one of our stops today I found a HUGE bag of these gems.  We were totally set for about 1 day before they were all gone once again :)

{yes, that freakish alien skin behind the candy is my hand}

 #3: (lowlight) Once we hit Chicago, we were in for a sore surprise.  We had a total wall of traffic on the I80 coming into the city and at one point had barely moved in over 30 minutes.  Luckily we had Maddie to entertain us with her own artistic rendition of the traffic.  I think she nailed it: our car is the tiny one stuck right between two huge semi's.  

#4: (highlight) During the day we started text messaging back and forth with Maren and Ryan Layton.  We discovered partway across the United States that we seemed to be moving at a similar pace and it was becoming more and more likely that we may cross paths prior to arriving in New Hampshire.  Luckily this ended up being the day that it happened!  After quite a bit of messaging we realized that we were all stopping that evening in Cleveland, OH for the night.  It was pretty fun to find out that we were all going to be staying at the same hotel.  I have to admit I was a little nervous as we pulled up.  I was hoping that they would like us, that my crazy kids wouldn't scare them away, that we would all continue to have common interests and "click" like we did at ASW, and that our families would mesh well together. I think the moment we got out of our cars and reconnected those fears all vanished away.  Maren walked right over to my car to meet the children and we were instantly smitten.  She was kind, friendly and geniunely interested in her conversations with the kids.  Robby was so excited when he found out Maren had a little girl that was four and enthusiastically replied "we're both four! We are kind of like twins!"  We ended up being next door neighbors that evening in the hotel and first thing in the morning Miss M was more than ready to go explore their room and get to know Leah better.  We were so excited to meet up with them because they will be living in the same community as us for the next two years and both hubbies will be starting at Dartmouth's business school this fall.  I was also very excited to meet the famous "Leah bean" that I had heard so much about since April.  Leah was a champ and already asleep, while my kids were all bouncing around like crazy as we pulled into the hotel.  Luckily we were able to calm them down fairly easily and all get a decent night of sleep.  

.....to be continued :)