Day One: Hannibal, MO

The van was loaded by 12:30 p.m. with everything I could remember we may need for a week long adventure trip across the country and back. By 12:32 the cooler and a bag of food had fallen out of the back before I had a chance to close it, spilling their contents of food into a mud puddle while the older two kids bickered and the youngest whined about the movie HE had selected.

I was pretty sure that if I looked up "family vacation" in the dictionary, I would find the definition to read, "An event that causes one to spend lots of money only to discover one really doesn't like one's family that much after all." Of course I love my family. The truth of the matter is simply that packing them up into a minivan makes me crabby. Thankfully things quickly took a turn for the better. The dreary drive in and out of rain actually went very well and we found a Best Western in the Mark Twain historical district of Hannibal, MO. The kids enjoyed an appetizer spread and then went swimming. This morning after breakfast and a quick look around, we'll spend 6.5 more hours in the car-Memphis-bound!