Crouch Family Monster Road Trip 2010 is Underway!

As I write this, I'm sitting in a hotel room in Shreveport, Louisiana.  The rest of my family is asleep right now, but not for long.  I will be attending RE Tech South on Thursday and Friday in Atlanta, and Pam and I decided to make a vacation out of it.  We're taking a few days to get there, then spending five days in Atlanta, then a few days to get back. We are hitting a different set of towns on the way there and back, so as to maximize the things we do and see.

I am hoping to share some of our interesting experiences here on my blog over the next ten days or so, but it really all depends on how tired I get.  :)

Yesterday was our longest day in the car with the kids (about 5.5 hours or so of actual driving, but we stopped several times, too).  Things went well overall, although our almost-four-year-old daughter Abby was relatively whiny until she finally took a nap.  I am proud to report that the baby (11 months old now) only cried about 20 minutes or so during the whole day.  My wife planned our itinerary to front-load the driving somewhat, so that on the last day in each direction, we'll have very short trips.

During the front edge of yesterday's trip, I started to wonder if we would see ANYTHING charming, since it felt more like a tour of sad little towns that were on a downhill slide.  Frankly, it seemed as though the headstone and funeral businesses were the sole thriving enterprises. 

Things changed as we got further into east Texas.  Somewhere around Palestine the towns and land both just seemed prettier. 

The kids were excited about how many trees there were, since portions of the drive felt like we were in the middle of a pine forest.  My son remarked, "I can't even SEE the tops of these trees!"  I heard several echoes to that effect from the younger kids, too.  "WOW!!!  SO MANY TREES!!!"  As evidence of their homeschooling, they also mentioned that it seemed like we were entering Lothlórien, which is basically where the Elves live in the Lord of the Rings series.

Cutest quote of the day (from Abby): "Dad, maybe when I grow up I can be a gardener and plant a tree."  When we responded with, "Sure you can" she said, "I need to get some tree seeds.  Maybe I can plant an apple tree."  It was such a sincere expression of interest in this task that I told Pam that I might just help her plant that tree when we get back home.

Thanks for reading! 

Next stop: Jackson, Mississippi