eliza was working hard to keep up with the packing…loading rocks into gift bags with helmet as suitcase.

and trying to get herself back in the house:

i wonder if this was a turning point for her…does she now know that having a chair in front of the door to reach the handle doesn’t work…or will she try it again?

after tenting for a night a few hours away, we headed north and stopped in hannibal to see the flooding sights.

amazing. humbling. scary. we were able to peek right over the levee and touch the wall that is holding the flood back. jerry confessed the mental plans he was making if the wall were to break.

hannibal was a wonderful stop on the way. dog friendly, homemade rootbeer, a somewhat urgent atmosphere knowing the water that loomed blocks away, lucky rabbit’s foot (i didn’t know they still sold those), a new sunhat, postcards, memories of decades past trips here.

then a few hours from chicagoland, it was crazy, crazy, crazy to be woken from a nap to jerry saying: kristin, i think your parents are behind us. what? no way. why would that be? sure enough, they drove a few hours our direction to meet up. they took the kids for some of the time, starting our time together a few hours early.

on this route, the kids were graced with lessons in energy. on our trip we passed an ethanol plant, a nuclear plant, then stopped at a wind farm. it was like a weird sci-fi movie. i wonder if the farmsteads are used to these by now? did those who built the farm generations ago even begin to imagine these would grace the land?

we (or now as i write it, i think it was more i) tried to come up with the most out-landish thing that might come on the land in the future. and we waited for the blades to get in the correct position to make peace signs…then the collective call: “peace sign!”……..”peace sign!”……..”peace sign!” oh, yeah, passing the time on the road.