After an... explosive... night last night, I awoke to more tummy troubles around 4am. I wasn't really able to fall deeply back to sleep, so I gave up and got out of bed at 7. I enjoyed another bubble bath and then we packed up and left.
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| Last day in the truck! |
In doing trip planning, I'd wanted to go to the Superman Museum and Gift Shop yesterday, before the hotel, but because of our late start, we got to Metropolis after they'd closed for the night. So our first stop this morning was the Superman statue.
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| There was a Super Girl option, but... no thank you! |
On paper, the Superman Museum sounded really cool, but when we got there, it looked kind of sad, so we just wandered the gift shop a little bit, picked up a magnet and took some photos outside.
We stopped for gas and snacks at a convenience store, and I was super pumped... They had Uncle Ray's Hot chips! I picked up two of the large bags, AND one of the individual sizes for immediate munching, as well as some powdered donuts for breakfast (unfortunately, they were stale).
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| It was cool to see a disassembled wind turbine - they're HUGE! |
A few hours later, we stopped in Mahomet, IL for gas and lunch, but unfortunately, the Dairy Queen was Drive-Thru only, and the truck wouldn't fit, so we got back on the interstate and stopped at a Dairy Queen in El Paso, IL instead. Even though I wanted a Blizzard, I also wanted to get back on the road quickly, so we just got easy to eat burgers and ate while we continued to drive north.
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| Cross at the Crossroads in Effingham, IL |
Just a few hours after that, Hubby spotted the first snow, that, at first, we didn't even know was snow! We live in Florida... it looked like white sand to us! He turned to me and said "I think that's snow? Is it snow?" But after driving a little further, the white got more and more prevalent, and we knew... IT WAS SNOW!!!
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| Is that? Is that... snow? |
I was so stoked! We were finally in the North. (Yes, I'm sure for you folks who live there, this is hilarious, but I've never seen snow in my life, except for once in 1989).
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| Oh yeah, baby... that's some SNOW! |
We stopped at the Willow Creek Rest Area around 4:30pm, solely to play with the snowdrifts. I made a snowball and threw it at the wall of a picnic pavilion. (Again, yes, Yankees, I know you're laughing.)
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| He took so many (bad) pictures of snow |
We got into Wisconsin around 5pm, and arrived at the Kiddo's new apartment by 6:30. The girls unpacked the truck while I headed inside to check out the new digs... If you can imagine an apartment full of video game nerds, you'd have a good idea what the apartment looked like. The mom part of me was upset (it was messy and dirty), but the I used to be young part of me let it go, because my first apartment wasn't much better! It wasn't nasty or unhealthy or anything like that. It just needed organization and a good vacuum.
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| Welcome to Wisconsin |
Once unpacked, we all somehow ended up in the Kiddo's bedroom chilling, and honestly, I think it was what I needed. I was able to see her in her new element, seemingly so much more adult, surrounded by her friends, and they were all so cute together, with a kind of "Sisters from Different Misters" vibe.
Originally, we were going to take all of them to dinner before saying good-bye, but they'd already eaten and seemed to practically forget we were even in the room. I always hate to be the person who breaks up fun, so we kind of had to catch her eye until she got the point that we needed to leave.
We had happy tears, sad tears, laughs, and lot of hugs, and finally, we had to leave her (dammit... yes, I'm tearing up now). I got in one more hug and then Hubby and I walked back to the truck. Hubby asked me if I would be okay to drive, and I kind of bit his head off, saying, "I'm not thinking about it until we get to the hotel," and put a huge fucking lid on it.
I never cried at the hotel.
I feel like I should feel bad about that, but because I cried so much before we left home, and then I had another good cry when I said goodbye, I don't feel bad. She's not dead. She's not gone forever. She's off living her life and being amazing. It's her time to be her own person, and not just my daughter. I said it to her, and I'll say it here... I'm so proud of her for choosing to take this amazing leap into adulthood. She didn't just take a small step out of her comfort zone, she is 1400 miles away from her comfort zone!
At the hotel, we unpacked all of our stuff from the Penske (in every attempt to pack light, we've ended up with 2 duffel bags, a large suitcase, and 5-6 reusable grocery bags at this point) and brought it up to the room with us, since we didn't know how we were going to handle the Truck Return/Car Rental in the morning. It seemed easier in the long run to do this.
Once settled, we chilled out on our tablets and fell asleep. Our real adventure begins tomorrow!
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