Day 5

We have arrived!  1700 miles from Boise, Idaho to Milwaukee, Wisconsin in less than 48 hours.  Technically, it took us 46.5 hours.  Not bad, huh?  We are SO relieved to not have another push like that on this trip.  Actually, nearly all of our other drives are around 300 miles, with a few 400-450, so it will feel like nothing!  The kids did great – they are so fun!

I realized this morning that I forgot to blog about our presentation at United Reformed Church of Nampa on Sunday evening.  Oops!  I blame the extreme lack of sleep.  Regardless, our presentation was a little bumpy, but fortunately, most of the wonderful people at URC are also parents and, from what we can tell, found it amusing.  You see, I was holding Amelia and told Levi to stay put in a chair that would sit right behind us while we presented our video and upcoming mission work in the fellowship hall.  No problem, right?  Well, Matthew began to speak and I stood up with Amelia.  Levi, with a sudden lapse in attention, didn’t see me stop three feet in front of him, but jumped out of his chair, shouted “Mommy!?” and began to run straight back down the center of the room all the way into the kitchen, shouting for me the entire time.  Looking back, it was adorable and amusing.  He was caught by someone he’d met earlier before he reached any real sense of panic.  I followed him, traded Amelia for him, and held him while Matthew was left to talk about our work alone.  Levi wasn’t in any mood after that to sit and let me do my thing, but I was totally fine standing the back, offering Levi snacks, and praying that we didn’t seem totally incompetent.  I don’t think we did, of course, but prayed for it all the same.  There were other little things that could have gone better, but you know what?  The people at that church are truly friendly, heard our mission, promised to pray for us and hopefully will be praying about whether they can and will also support us financially.  We are excited to have had the opportunity to worship with this group of believers and we hope to see them again soon!

So, now that I’m caught up, today’s drive began with a tasty continental breakfast at the hotel and taking our time this morning, not hitting the road until 9:30.  I, not realizing how tired I still was, slept the first two hours of the trip.  It was beautifully sunny and pretty through the rest of Nebraska and into Iowa.  Then, the snow hit.  Ugh…I took this picture of a jack-knifed semi facing the wrong way in the median.  I took it because it was so horrible looking and I hadn’t seen anything like that and thought it might be a good picture to describe the road conditions on the highway for the rest of the trip.  However, as the miles passed, there were SO MANY semis and trucks and cars in the ditches that the picture became fairly meaningless…there was a car about every five miles across the entire state of Iowa!  But, before any of you think it was a horrible drive, let me tell you: after five years of living in the Land of Winter (Fairbanks, Alaska), driving in those conditions is second-nature.  No problem.  A little scary on the ice patches, but we can handle it.  I remember driving my last winter in Fairbanks – sliding on ice had become so common that it was no longer scary or even an incident…it was as simple as any other part of driving: deal with it and move on.  And I didn’t even slide today.  Neither did Matthew, though he’s a far better and more experienced driver than I was, so it’s not even worth mentioning.  The snowy conditions remained all the way through Illinois and Wisconsin.  They have a fresh layer of snow here just outside of Milwaukee.  I hear the worst snow storm in over thirty years is headed toward Seattle, so I say we got out of there just in time.

Tomorrow: Presentation at my aunt’s Bible study, rest, dinner with extended family