We took our last glimpse at 72 Clearwater Avenue (formerly Street - apparently it was re-named last week) Tuesday morning just after 7am. Sleeping in an empty house was a little strange last night - certainly getting up at 4am, 5am and 6:15am didn't help. The 4am wake-up was to feed the 'kids', 5am was to give them drugs and then 6:15 was for us.
We hit the road a little later than planned but breezed through the border. Here we had all our paperwork ready to go for the expected grilling - but then had to remind the border guard we had to go inside to import our car. So, we did that and then it was off we go! It took about 15mins and we were both shocked at how easy it was. No search of our vehicle, contents or verification of our papers....we were good with that!
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| 'We're ready to go!' |
Then it was off to Grand Forks and the great phone search. That took us the better part of an hour - longer than expected. The best offer was a FREE iPhone4 with unlimited minutes and texting for $130 month (shared between the two of us). But because we don't have Social Security Numbers yet, we needed to put down a $500 deposit. Ya, we bought a $25 burner instead...and it includes texting to Canada!
From there, off to Omaha, NE! To say the dogs were brilliant would be an understatement! Man, those drugs REALLY worked...They were sleeping most of the time, but woke up and ran around the times we did stop for pee breaks, food, etc.
I will say this, the Americans have this whole Interstate Highway thing perfected. Holy heck the highways are awesome - smooth and dual lanes. There was some construction delays in South Dakota but nothing major.
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| It was literally a straight drive south |
They US also has the Rest Stop perfected. We stopped at one mid-afternoon and the place was amazing! Dog exercise area, picnic tables (covered - in case it rains), CLEAN bathrooms, vending machines, water and wi-fi. We had some lunch there and let the kids run around for a bit.
Just as the day started to turn into night, we got into Iowa and arrived at our hotel. Once settled, we took the kids for a walk - and apparently we are in a sketchy area of town....as evidenced by the shirtless gentleman staring us down as he bbq'd in his backyard. His truck also had its hood up for no apparent reason...He did not look very friendly. A further trot down the street had Terri a bit terrified and we quickly high-tailed it back to the comfort of the Quality Inn & Suites - where an order of chinese food awaited us. We are planning to take it easy before another early day tomorrow...more driving and drugs...
There are more pics and some video below!
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| Jonny got some rest on Jeremy's lap. |
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| A gorgeous day for a rest stop! |
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| Rolling around in the grass. I also chased my ball around! |
As an aside - road trip time has given us the chance to listen to some podcasts. If you are a fan of humor and sports, I HIGHLY recommend the Jay & Dan Podcast from TSN. Terri and I were in stitches due to the two of them. It's somewhat juvenile at times but funny. More podcasts will be downloaded for the trip tomorrow!
Thanks for reading!! An update from Paducah, KY should be up Wednesday evening!
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