the past 27 days, part 1

This is how it all started at approximately 6:00am on the morning of July 30th. Here's one last look at our little home in the Carolinas (it really does look tiny without any furniture):

If you don't count the 20+ paint cans we left in the attic, the lamp in the corner of the living room, and the microwave on the kitchen counter, the house was completely empty--a fete which didn't seem possible at 10:30 the night before when Alex and I began packing the Explorer. Because the pods were so meticulously packed, we left ourselves with little room for the items we had been living with for the three days following their departure. Who knew my clothes--only half of my closet--would take up so much room in the car? As a result, here's what our car looked like just before we pulled out of the driveway:

Catcher happily packed in next to his pillow and potty. That's a stack of dirty bath towels resting just above his head, in case you're wondering.

Positioned on the other side of the stack of pillows was little Scout. We thought it might work against us if the kids couldn't look at each other during the 19-hour drive, but it actually turned out to be a good thing because they also couldn't bug one another. I think Scout just slept most of the time while Catcher listened to his Winnie the Poo books on CD (which we could only play while I was driving since the timbre of the reader's voice would put Alex to sleep at the wheel).

Approximately nine hours into our drive, and there (surprisingly!) had been no major breakdown from this three year-old in the back seat.

In case you're having trouble seeing it, that little blue eyeball poking out belongs to Scout. This was my view of her from the passenger's seat. She was so quiet that I would have to unbuckle my seatbelt to turn around and occasionally check in on her. If she got fussy, I would just hand her some Teddy Grahams.

I had great visions of documenting our road trip by taking pictures of all the weird/extraordinary/interesting things I saw on the road. I imagined our whole family getting out of the car to take a picture every time we crossed a state line, standing in front of the "Welcome to X" sign. I thought we would get postcards from every state to show the kids when they grow up someday. But it turns out that there isn't much interesting on a drive from North Carolina to Texas. I thought the world's largest fireworks store was pretty cool when I saw it in South Carolina, but when I saw the same one in Louisiana (or was it Alabama?) I wasn't so impressed any more.

Below is a picture as we're crossing over a bridge in a state that I can't even remember. They all looked the same, and I'm glad we weren't moving to Louisiana, Alabama or Mississippi. Did we even drive through Mississippi? Like I said, they all looked the same. 

The only thing I do remember is crossing into Texas. I was at the wheel, and the actual state line was in the middle of some river. When we got to the end of the bridge, there was a giant star--as only Texas could do--and a "Welcome to Texas, the Lonestar State" sign. I felt welcome. Catcher was the only one awake in the car, so I whispered, "Catcher! Catcher! Look at that giant star. We're in Texas!" 

"What Texas?" he replied.