After the shuffle of family ended, we had to get on the road. Rich has always chosen the road as a way to decompress; in fact, he'd been on the road for some of K's more famous meltdowns. She hadn't been gone more than a few hours when Rich said, "We need to get out of here. We need to drive." I was really grateful that he started with "we" because there was no way in hell I was letting him go alone. In fact, it'll be a looooong time before any one of the 3 of us spends a night without the other.
We rented a big ass mini van and loaded it up with plastic containers filled with clothes, books, "toys gracie will play with a lot" and whatever other random business managed to make its way into packages in the midst of grief. (Unpacking today in our final destination I pulled out a plastic bag of shower toys, still wet from 2 weeks ago shower water, mostly tiny ponies with not-quite-moldy hair. ewwwwwww.) The car was half filled, the other ready for relaxing, reading, movie watching, and Critter playing (thanks, Caroline!).
We made it as far as Springfield, Illinois before we had to stop. Halversons love a good historical site - how could we pass up the Abe Lincoln museum? Also…giant chickens
The museum was actually well done - a great live-action one man show about the ghosts in the historical library (oddly not about Lincoln, really only in passing). We got there at the end of the day and moved through crowds of middle schoolers ("it's pretty crowded considering not that many kids live in Springfield!) and closed up shop after running through a log cabin and reading about the war through Lincoln's eyes. Rich & G sketched Lincoln's tomb which is situated in a working cemetery. I don't think I've ever seen such a famous historical figure buried among the hoi polloi but there he was. Then we found a perfect italian restaurant in town - just like Josie's in Madison circa 2005.
After dinner we drove through to Saint Louis where we checked into the Four Seasons (hey!). It was perfectly Four Seasons-y, complete with check in upstairs from the entrance. Across from a big casino, however - which is definitely a river boat unique feature of the Lou. Room service and snuggles into the big bed in the fancy hotel with an amazing view of the arch...
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