Wednesday, October 26, 2011

The Long Road Home, Day 4



After the funeral, we stayed that night, and decided to head home the next day, being Saturday. But we weren't in a big rush, we wanted happy children more than we wanted an early start on the road. So we started off the day with a family swim to at the Holiday Inn pool. Did I mention it was warm like bathwater? Too bad the halls weren't that toasty, but the water was wondrous, and the kids were angelic. The kids had a wonderful time swimming.

They were actually just fine about hitting the road. We got all loaded up by 11, and then met Daddy and MB for lunch at Anderson's for Beef and Weck before we headed out of town. We didn't get on the road until about 12:15, and within in minutes the kids were asking to watch movies. We held out for about an hour before caving. I told them we'd wait until we could see Grape vines.


We saw Lake Erie too, but the kids really didn't care about that.



Somewhere in Pennsylvania we needed to get gas, we held out until the kids were giving us signs that they needed a break too. We exited for a town called Girard. Only Girard, and it's mythical gas stations were no where near the highway. We spent 20 minutes hunting, finally asking for directions, and when we were finally headed into 'town' we crossed this bridge, and saw near a dozen guys standing in the creek fly fishing in the bits of sunshine that were starting to peep out. Just lovely.



The photos don't do the day justice though. The kids weren't too happy we didn't let them out once we finally found gas, we wanted to get back on the highway, so the next rest area we came to, we stopped. And we couldn't have picked a prettier place and time to stop. The sun came out, but there was a nice wind.



We were surrounded by pretty trees and plants, and there was lots of room for the kids to run. We let them out, and I went exploring to see some of the pretties.



Burning bush with red berries.



I don't know what this plant is, but it sure was pretty in the wind.







Dandelions can really be pretty. Weed is in the eye of the beholder.



The kids loved finding a few sparse dandelions still alive. They thought they were great flowers. And they didn't mind running through the muddy field to pick a few.



Annie and Chris both found flowers to bring me. So sweet!



Then Charlie had to join the flower picking party!



It really was a very lovely rest stop. The kids were having a great time just running.



And the trees were in color. It's amazing how Beautiful God can make death.



Sam couldn't decide if he wanted to 'nuggle' Daddy, or to play with the other kids.



Who could resist playing Peekaboo with this one?



Or to see the Beauty of a running child?



The trees were simply lovely. It really was a perfect break in our day.



Annie wouldn't hold still for a moment, she was all over the place. She kept finding pretty leaves and stuffing them into Lisa's pockets.



As Eric was buckling in the kids for the last stretch through Cleveland and beyond, we cleared out Lisa's pocket. It was hysterical how many leaves that child stuffed in there.



But Beautiful too.

1 comments:

Kristi {at} Live and Love...Out Loud said...

So many great shots! I'm so sorry about the funeral though. Such a sad time.
Thanks for joining us in the Shades of Autumn Photo Challenge. I hope you'll be back again on Friday when we move on to our new theme, purple! Have a great day.