I love traveling! I love road trips, I love seeing new places, eating good food (Wyoming is limited!) meeting new people and see how way of life differs, seeing changing scenery and wildlife, all of it!
We hit the road about two weeks later than we had hoped so we didn't take as much time crossing the country as originally planned. We did still want the boys to see some sights along the way, and of course get out of the car and run some energy off!
My favorite stop by far was on day 3. We stopped Arbor Days Farm in Nebraska City, Nebraska! We were there at least an hour but didn't do even half of the things that are available. You walk in through the gift shop and a lady explained the trail to us for the giant tree house walk. Timing was perfect, while a little chilly it wasn't near as windy or cold as it had been this far. We also started just after two school groups left of about 100 kids each! We pretty much had the place to ourselves, it was wonderful! First, you walk down to an interactive playground. It has hammocks, wooden xylophones, rolling bridge, wiggle boards, huge wood blocks for stacking, carved tree stumps and sand and water area. Then back on the path there are animal tracks in the concrete for you to guess and then a wooden post that slides up to reveal which animal it's from. There was a giant net like a spider web to climb and jump on, some of the coolest kid zip lines-they were so smooth, slowed to a stop and then come back to the beginning as many times as you want. (I don't recommend for adults if your abs are not at least a little in shape-just a tip 🤦🏼♀️🥴) a climbing wall, climbing ropes with bells at the top and other activities along the path. But the best part of all is the giant rope bridges above the trees! You can go from platform to platform, there's a giant net trampoline in the center, a slide and more! It was the perfect place to run off some energy and see some really cool sights! We all want to go back there again.
Growing up we always referred to Missouri as "Misery." Not sure why. After spending a little bit of time there and driving through and camping there, it was beautiful! The weather was nice, lots of green everywhere, rolling hills and trees. I would like to spend more time there some time.
I have also always really liked the thought of Kentucky and Tennessee. I have driven through these states a handful of times over the years but never really spent much time there. This go round wasn't too good to us on this trip. As we were coming down I-24 near Lookout Mountain, going 70 mph in 4 lanes of traffic, the camper tires on the driver side slipped off the road due to gravel missing. It ripped both tires off the camper, send our car and camper bouncing-tires off the ground each in the opposite directions. If it weren't for the rollbars and mercy of God we would have rolled. We were near a cliff side when we first hit the pothole, there were plenty of vehicles on the road with us but miraculusly no one else was injured either. I truly thought we were going to roll. Thankfully, Jason knew how to ride that out as well and handled it as well as possible. We did have a spare tire, so we changed that out, cleaned up the camper a little bit from food, glass, clothes, broken cabinet doors and everything else that was tossed all around. Somewhere along the way after that, it was dark by now, I noticed smoke coming from the camper tires. The spare had completely shredded. Ratchet straps held the axel up, one tire on each side, and we just had to take a much slower drive to Mapleton, Georgia.
Jason's childhood friend lives in Mapleton. We had already planned to spend one night at his friends house. Due to not being able to find tires and rims, or the cost being much higher, we ordered them online and will just spend a few extra days in Mapleton.
We are so thankful God kept us upright and on the road; there's no other explanation.
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