Finally posting about our trip...(very long, sorry)

So I am finally able to get on and post! I've been busy with laundry, cleaning and spending time with my friend, Mieree.
Anyway, we had such a wonderful time on our trip. We are definitely going to do a road trip again in the very near future. Brenna was absolutely wonderful the entire time. She's such a great traveler and stays entertained with her DVD player, Nintendo DS and drawing. Never once did we hear, "When are we gonna be there?" or anything like it. I was amazed! LOL
I loved being in the car and seeing all the different states and scenery. We drove through 7 states in 12 days - so as you can see there was LOTS of car time. I was the navigator and spent the whole time with a map in my lap, telling Brendon and Brenna where we were going to be next and pointing out other miscellaneous things (rivers, ect). I took tons of books but never even opened one. I was having too much fun with my maps! At one point I told Brendon that I loved maps and he said he's going to get me a t-shirt that says that. LOL
I really tried getting Brenna interested in all the beautiful landscaping but she just didn't care much. But when we drove through a town and she finally took her nose out of her DS she saw a Pizza Hut and said with all the excitment she had, "Look Mom! They have a Pizza Hut!" Crazy kid.

So let me start at the beginning....
We stayed in Waco the first night (Wednesday) with Aunt Lyn and went to see her beautiful Arabian horses. They are not only pretty but VERY friendly and when we went in the pasture the six that were there all came right up to us and loved on us. Brenna was thrilled. I did forget my camera that time so I never got any pictures. I'm hoping we will be able to go again so I can make up for my mistake. They would have been great pictures.
Second day the destination was Kansas. When we drove through Oklahoma, one of the highlights was taking a small detour and driving on Route 66. I thought that was pretty neat and we found a park to stop and eat lunch at. We took a big ice chest with us and tons of food - saved lots of money that way!
So after we left Route 66 we headed onto Kansas. With me being such a huge Wizard of Oz fan, it was really cool seeing the "Welcome to Kansas" sign. Of course we listened to the soundtrack - how could I not? :) We got to our hotel that night and swam in the pool for a while - that was nice after a long day in the car.
Third day we woke up and packed and drove to Wamego, Kansas - home of the Wizard of Oz Museum and Winery. It was fabulous - better then I had expected. They had so many neat things. One of my favorites was a clay monkey that they actually used in the movie for the scenes with the flying monkeys. I took tons of pictures. We also stopped at the Wizard of Oz Winery and got a few bottles of wine. Once those are empty they will be a nice addition to my collection.
After we left the museum we got back on the road to head to Iowa. We took a small detour (took lots of those actually!) and followed signs that lead us to the Oregon Trail. After a few failed attempts to find a place to stop and eat we finally found a nice park on the Oregon Trail and had lunch. It was neat being someplace that I had only read about as a kid. I borrowed a book from Mieree for Brenna to read about the Oregon Trail. It's a story about two kids so I think she might like it - especially since she has actually been there.
We finally got to Iowa around 9pm and got right in the pool. Something about washing in-the-car-grime off of you is very refreshing!
The next day, Saturday, was Travis and Marrona's wedding. The ceremony was at a park and it was so nice - great weather for an outdoor wedding. We all went to the reception afterwards and Brenna had a fun time dancing on the dance floor with a bunch of other kids. We met Jason's (Brendon's step brother) girl friend and her little boy, Ethan - such wonderful people! Brenna and Ethan really hit it off and spent the whole time together. Angie and I got along great and we are hoping they will come down and visit sometime.
Day five - Sunday. On the road again headed to Springfield, Missouri. When we got into Missouri we decided to take the scenic route through Central Missouri because we thought it would be a lot prettier then just driving along the border of Kansas and Missouri. We were wrong. Not that great for the extra hour or so we spent in the car. It was pretty but not really worth it.
Finally got to Springfield and of course it was straight to the pool. We stayed at the Ramada Oasis and they had a great indoor pool with an atrium.
Funny story here --- After we got to the hotel Brendon said that he heard that there were three bands staying there that night - LA Guns, Great White and Firehouse (all 80's hair bands). I went out to the car real quick at about 9:30 that night to get some stuff and happened to see some guys getting instruments out of a van. They had these stage pass things around their necks that said LA Guns. These other two guys were behind them and they were all made up in their 80's get-up - from the long, curly, poofy hair to the snake skin boots - it was pretty amusing. Looked like they walked right off of an old poster. Anyways, I said hello and walked passed them to go in the door. They came in behind me and I noticed they were going into the same hall as I was so I thought I'd be nice and hold the door open. Oh geez. I ended up hitting one of the 80's dudes (found out after looking online that it was the lead singer) and knocking his drink all over his shoes and the floor. I apologized a bunch and headed straight to the room where I cracked up laughing and told Brendon all about it. It was pretty funny.
Day six - woke up early and started off to Arkansas. Out of all the states it was definitely the most beautiful! Before we got to Arkansas, we stopped in Branson, Missouri "just to drive around real quick" - yeah right. Ended up spending two hours there. LOL We took an AmTrak train ride through the Ozarks and WOW! was it breathtaking! Definitely worth the stop.
We finally got into Arkansas and stopped at the Welcome Center to get our free map. The nice lady there talked us into taking the Arkansas Scenic 7 Byway - yes, yet another scenic drive. I am so glad we did though because I have never seen anything like it! We drove right through the Ouachita Mountains and the Ozark National Forest. That drive was worth the extra time and I would recommend it to anyone.
That day (Monday) we reached our destination - Lake DeGray State Park. We got there kinda late (wonder why??LOL) so only had enough time to walk around a bit and go swimming. We stayed there all week and left Friday. This post is already pretty long so I won't go into all the details but we had a blast! We went horseback riding, swimming at the beach, rented a boat and drove around the lake for 2 hours, went on a sunset cruise and took a hay ride on the last night and went to a square dance. That was sooooo much fun!! We had never square danced in our lives and didn't think we'd stay but I think that was the best time we had while we were there.
They are lots of pictures from DeGray for everyone to look at (link at the bottom).

So Friday we left and stayed the night in Houston. Woke up Saturday and drove to Rockport, TX for a family reunion on my Dad's side and stayed till Sunday. I must have the biggest family in the world. LOL I think someone tallied up almost 200 people. We stayed at a resort and had all the cabins but one or two. There were so many people there that on Sunday morning I was STILL seeing people that I hadn't seen all weekend. We had a lot of fun though!!!

I was a little sad to be home but in a way it was kinda nice being back to our regular stuff, like our BED! I love sleeping in my bed after being away for a long time. I still can't get over how much fun we had. I think we will be talking about this trip for a very long time. I'm hooked on road trips now though so I'm hoping we'll be taking another one next year. We'd like to drive to Oregon next time!! Wow - now that's a drive.

Anyway, here's the link for all the pictures. I took over 500 but I weeded through them and posted the best ones. There's still about 250 I think.

(If it doesn't automatically start the slide show, click on "slide show" on the top right corner)
http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v23/raving_butterfly/Iowa%20Trip%202009/?albumview=slideshow