December 5, 2008--Rest of vacation story

I wanted to finish up our vacation story.

On Sunday we went to the Gulf Shores, Alabama, to the beach. We drove along the shore for awhile, but the speed limit was only 45mph so we ended up getting back on the interstate so we could get there faster. This was the first time the kids had ever seen the ocean, and it was really neat. We had left the swimsuits in the suitcase in the car top carrier, since it was a little cool to swim, and told them they could just wade. They ended up getting soaked anyway, though, and we didn't have any dry clothes to change them into.

 

Then we had to decide where to spend the night. There was a state park close by, and we were wanting to go camping, but Erick wanted to drive more so we could make it home the next day. So we loaded the wet, sandy children into the van, and drove for about five more hours to a state park just south of Birmingham, AL. By the time we got there we were all sleeping (except for Erick, of course) and we set up our tent in the dark, with a flashlight.

It got cold that night. Our air mattress kept sagging and we had to pump it up three times. The only place that was warm was the bathrooms--and they had the heat turned up so high it was suffocatingly hot. We survived the night, but I was so sore and stiff the next day. We decided that we were going to get home that day no matter how long it took.

But first we stopped in Birmingham to meet HisCovenant. She's really nice, and we had a lot of fun talking and getting to know each other better. We actually met for the first time in the bathroom at the Botanical Gardens. It was definitely an interesting place to meet! Timothy fell into a fountain there and soaked his clothes (which happened to be his last pair of clean clothes) and so we had to go to Walmart and buy him some new ones. In the meantime he wore one of Jay's shirts, which looked like a dress on him. He wasn't too happy about that.

Then we drove home, and got there about 11:00pm. I drove through most of Kentucky, but Erick did the rest. We went the back roads through Indiana because the roads looked straightish on the map, but they weren't straight at all. It probably would have been faster if we had taken the interstate like we had planned to do.

So that's the end of our vacation! I'm finally finished with it!