Trip Day 17-18. The end.

Sunday was our last full day of vacation. We checked out of our hotel and then drove to Rosalynde's church at 12:30. Miles was blessed in Sacrament meeting, and then Elena was baptized right after church, during an incredible downpour outside. I got to hold Miles, everyone told me how much Rosalynde and I look alike, and the baptism was wonderful. Elena and Jack sang "I'm Trying to Be Like Jesus," and were so adorable. I wish I could get my boys to sing together like that!
Afterwards we went to Rosalynde's house for dinner and conversation. My dad was there as well as Rosalynde's in-laws and her brother-and-sister-in-law and their little boy.
Much too soon, we had to hit the road. I made all the cousins sit down for one look-see-we-were-all-there picture.

Left to right: Mara (3), Mosey (5), Elena (8) with Miles (3 months) on her lap, Jack (5-almost-6), Brigham (7-almost-8), and Joseph (7-almost-8).

And Ben snapped one of Rosalynde and me.


We drove out of St. Louis as the sun was beginning to go down, and marveled at the beautiful rolling hills and countryside of that part of Missouri. I really think I could live there, as long as Rosalynde was still there!
We intended to stop for the night once we got to Oklahoma, but we kept driving for a while longer, debating whether to just drive through the night. We decided not to push it, but didn't want to spend much money on a motel room we'd only stay in for a few hours.
The boys had all fallen asleep in the car, still in their Sunday clothes.



Finally, we stopped in this little town, and pulled up to the only motel in sight. Ben woke up the manager and paid 20-something dollars in cash, including a bunch of change, which I'm sure the guy loved.
Let's just say the motel room was... not 5-stars. I wouldn't even rate it as a 1-star.
It reeked so strongly of cigarette smoke, that even though I was so tired my eyes felt like they were about to bleed, I could not sleep. Finally I told Ben I couldn't handle it, and went out to the van and slept (very comfortably) on the back seat.
As soon as it got light, we got up and went on our way.
I had to document the motel room, but seriously, the pictures do not come close to showing how icky it was.
The bathroom had a bathroom mat on the floor that looked like it had not been washed... ever. So gross!!


The room featured 2 non-working TV's, a full sized refrigerator AND a dorm-sized refrigerator.


Beautiful paneling and seating, and plush, luxurious carpet. At least, it was back in 1969. I forbade the boys from walking on the carpet in their bare feet.


The gorgeous view from the front door.


Ahhh, the lovely Colonial Motel. We won't be seeing you again soon.


How spoiled rotten am I? There are plenty of places in this world where that motel room would be considered luxurious.

The rest of the ride home was just fine, although definitely a denouement from the rest of the trip. We'd been gone almost 3 weeks, but I really could have kept going for at least another 3 weeks. I was not at all anxious to get back home.

Mister was glad to see us. Chrissy didn't seem to care. One of our fish died. Everything else was fine.
Actually, we didn't see Mister until the next day. Did I ever tell what Mister did on our trip?
Before we left, I found a pet-sitter to come to our house twice a day to let the dog out and take him for a walk, feed the other animals and water the plants. When she came over to meet Mister, she encouraged us to let him board with her. It would be cheaper than her coming to our house twice a day. We could leave the dog door open for Chrissy to go in and out, and have the pet-sitter come only every other day to check on things.
Ben and I were skeptical because Mister doesn't get along very well with other dogs, and she was boarding 5 other dogs at the time. But she met him and insisted that he would do fine, and told us we could take him to her house for the day just to make sure he would be ok. So we did, and he actually did ok. He got along with the other dogs, and only pulled down her drapes in the front room when she left him shut up in her front room.
That should have been her clue.
We told her that Mister freaks out when he is closed up in a room by himself. He will do anything to get out. (Our good friends took care of him while we were in CA at Christmas a couple of years ago, and had him stay in this goat-house-out-building-thingy at the back of their property. He broke down the door to get out.) He's ok being left in the whole house, but NOT alone in a room.
Well, apparently she forgot this, and after he had been at her house for a little over a week, she shut him up in her laundry room while she left for a couple of hours.
Mister was a very bad dog.
It was also the ONLY day when my phone was off (it had run out of power, and we were driving from Ohio to Illinois, and we didn't have a car charger). When we got to our hotel in Chicago, there were about 15 increasingly-desperate messages from her.
It turns out he freaked out while she was gone, and started scratching at the walls in the laundry room where he was locked up. He actually dug through the sheetrock and was working his way through the sheetrock on the other side of the wall when she got home.
She ended up taking him to a kennel where he stayed (uneventfully) the rest of the time.
He did fine at the kennel, and I felt really bad for the pet-sitter, although we had warned her, and she did have an indication of what he might do when he stayed at her house. We had told her we thought he'd be better off at our house, but she really did insist that he would do just fine at her house.
Anyway, just another tale of our bad, bad dog. For such a quiet, mild-mannered, lazy dog, he is really very BAD!!!
Joseph was SOOOOOO happy to see him again. That was the only reason Joseph wanted to go home. He missed his doggy.
So that was it! The end of our journey.
It was so great and I'm already planning on our road trip next year.