Another exciting day! The morning started slowly because this Holiday Inn did not have a full hot breakfast and we had to pry Movie Star off of Mom.
They had some warm sausage like breakfast sandwich, which even if we ate meat would have been avoided. The only other choice was packaged muffin and fruit loops. Needless to say the little ones did not eat very well.
World’s Largest Truck Stop
Our first stop was to see the world’s largest truck stop. Mom was NOT looking forward to this and kept mumbling under her breadth that we should avoid it. However, it was on the route with no detour required. It was also a convenient place to stop for lunch due to timing. I decided to drive to ensure she didn’t accidentally pass it.
When you are driving from western Illinois to Eastern Iowa I found out there are only four things you can see: Road, Corn Fields, A few Trees, and Orange Construction barrels. Lots and Lots of Construction barrels. The construction was everywhere and really annoying because I could not use cruise control. At one point, I exited 7 miles of construction only to drive 0.25 miles to the next sign that read construction for the next 10 miles. Why bother to even end the construction zone? Was it some cruel joke or did they just run out of budget for barrels? I guess we will never know.
A Movie Monster is Born
As we drove through the construction, Move Star took on the role of Movie Monster. The small sugary muffin caused her to go from happy and cheerful to starring in a disaster movie in the blink of an eye. Suddenly, our cheerful little girl started roaring in the back seat.
“Stop showing me your disgusting bug bite” she wailed at her sister. Her sister was sitting innocently in her seat (for once), with her very ordinary bug bite on her leg.
“Your sister can’t make her bug bite go away” we explained calmly.
“Eww, Eww, its disgusting. Make her hide it, make her hide it. I can’t look at it.”
“Stop looking and JUST EAT A SNACK”, mom and dad yelled.
“NO! I am going to throw up because of the disgusting bug bite. I can’t possibly eat when I am looking at that”.
“You have until this song is over to eat or no sleeping with Mom!”, I bellowed.
“No one loves me. No one lets me do whatever I want” our Movie Monster screamed with tears flowing down her face.
There was lots of yelling, much of which I have blocked from my mind. It lasted for the next 20 minutes. Note to parents: threatening to leave your child on the side of the road does not work. It only causes more tears and exclamations of, “See, I told you know one loves me”. Somehow, we did get the Movie Star to close her eyes and rest, which at least gave us some quiet as we drove towards the largest truck stop.
We arrived, and indeed it was a VERY large truck stop. It had everything and anything you could want inside (except babysitters and a muzzle). Luckily, as soon as Movie Monster saw that there would be souvenirs she went from disaster to cheerful:
Fossil Search
Our next stop was the Devonian Fossil Gorge in Iowa city. We wouldn’t get to collect any specimens here, but we would get to see a whole lot of fossils. The beds are in the dam spillway that forms Coralville Lake:
Mom and Movie Star had a great time searching for fossils:
Tweenager the Grumpy complained every 2 seconds because it was hot and VERY muggy. I told her that we would stay an extra minute every time she complained. Luckily, I was not held to that statement otherwise we would have had to sleep at the campgrounds for the next week. Can’t you see the enjoyment in her eyes?
All in all the fossils were pretty neat. Here are some of the things we saw. Attitude did pick up a bit when Tweenager managed to spot a crayfish:
At the fossil beds everyone was really hot. Luckily, Movie Star had spotted an ice cream cone. This reminded us of Mom’s Ice Cream versus Aliens priority (see yesterday). Therefore, we decided to get ice cream. Notice, everyone running ahead to get back to the car so we could go to the ice cream shop:
We found a local chain on the way that had homemade ice cream. I think I can definitevly say that everyone enjoyed this stop:
Movie Star really liked digging through the ice cream to get to the bubble gum:
Of course, Mom was not so happy that the kids continuously smooshed her. Even though she looks grumpy in the picture, she was secretly loving the ice cream :). I just couldn’t wait to look for Aliens tonight!
Blown Away
Our next stop was to see the World’s Largest Frying Pan. Both girls were excited. On the way things began to look really ominous. Movie Star became very nervous when I mentioned the word Tornado. The clouds were clearly moving in all kinds of directions and the radar looked REALLY bad. In spots it really looked like a tornado was in the process of forming.
As we proceeded, the rain started to come down like cats and dogs and elephants. Maybe we shouldn’t have made so much fun of the Ark, because we could have used it.
Mom the Fearless pressed on anyway, driving at breakneck speed while everyone else in the car yelled at her frantically to slow down. She told us she was only going 3 miles above the speed limit and there was no issue. Normally I would agree, but can you even see the road?:
As we continued to scream at Mom and hang on for dear life we came across lots of emergency vehicles. A car had been blown off the road and was upside down in a ditch. Despite this warning, Mom still insisted nothing was wrong with her rather risky driving. As she was explaining how there was no problem, a big gust of wind literally blew us and the truck next to us into the other lane. Unfortunately for us there was no other lane. Luckily, there was a medium. This did cause Mom the Slightly Less Fearless to slow down to 60, but she still insisted that it was ok to race down the highway without being able to see the road. We all did point out that the other cars had all pulled over it was so bad. This included cars and the truck drivers. Luckily we went under a bridge so I was able to capture proof when she later denies the entire incident:
We managed to survive. It could have been the cow pastures we were in, but I am pretty sure the smell was from all of us peeing just a little bit in our pants due to the extreme fear.
We passed to the other side of the main thunderstorm, but unfortunately, the largest frying pan was still not clear. Is there a more dangerous place to be in a thunderstorm then next to a giant object made of solid metal? At least if it got struck while we were there we would fry up nicely.
Luckily, we had timed it perfectly and made it to the pan during a break in the storm. The frying pan was a bit anticlimactic after the storm and smaller than expected, but we snapped some quick pictures anyway:
The end of the day
After the near death experience, we convinced Tweenager the Picky to go to a Mexican restaurant. We ate some good food, saw a nice sunset, and headed to our Holiday Inn Express for the evening. The hotel even had our name on a board to announce our arrival. I guess they knew we would make it through the storm alive:
Another successful day on our Epic Return Trip!