“We drivin’ to Nebacka?”

We decided to change our two night hotel reservation to just staying overnight at the hotel from Tuesday night to Wednesday morning. Theo and Woodrow stayed at my parents house on Monday night for a fun sleepover and a full day with grandparents on Tuesday, so we just had Maximus for the night on Monday and we were able to stay in the house.  On Tuesday afternoon as the truckers were finished up we got an email about our original hotel moving us to a different location because they extended some guests  reservation me which bumped us out of the hotel.  

Despite this frustration and bump in the road we made it work and ended up with a nice suite for Tuesday night. We were up a little bit late and Maximus had some trouble falling asleep, but in the end it worked out decently. I slept pretty horribly but that was somewhat to be expected before our big driving day.  Wednesday morning my parents came and met us at the hotel while we had breakfast and we said our “see you soons,” and we were on the road by 9:30 AM which was our goal.  

Overall the drive from Chicago to Omaha is pretty straightforward.   It is approximately 7 1/2 hours without stops so we were hoping to make it around dinner time or by 7 PM.  The kids and I were loaded up in the Highlander and Mason in the Camry just to sort of contain the chaos to one vehicle for the first part of the drive.  The kids dug into their activity bags before we had even hit the highway-just five minutes down the roads.  For the first two hours of the trip Maximus kept saying, “I want to go home”, “I want to go to Gram’s house.”

The weather was sort of our ideal driving weather; mostly cloudy,  some spots with rain,  and then only in the last hour and a half of the drive did the sun come out welcoming us to Nebraska.  The kids did great on the whole drive. We made it from all the way to Davenport, Iowa before stopping for a quick lunch and fuel break, we then continued on our way to West Branch, Iowa to check out the birthplace of Herbert Hoover.  The area is a state park and it was gorgeous, unfortunately by that time it was pouring rain pretty heavily so we decided to take a quick look at his gravesite and then move on.  Our Theodore is very into presidents right now so this was an exciting/requested stop for/by him.  

I was feeling pretty poorly during our drive after a bad night of sleep and a long drive without being able to switch drivers, but I was thankful the kids did really well and I had some podcasts to keep me attentive.  We ended up stopping for a quick break and Maximus went to ride with Mason, where he promptly fell asleep.  Theo, Woodrow, and I made a quick treat stop at Dairy Queen and pressed on our merry way.   We ended up pulling into our new town just around 7:30 PM and the kids were so excited to see our new house.