Heartland America Tour Photos: Day 1 & 2

In case you are just tuning in, my son recently won a robotics competition and we had all of two weeks to campaign for donations, pack our bags, and organize a cross-country trip from Texas to Michigan. Our trip began at 6 AM last Thursday when we pulled out of the driveway and ended yesterday at around 8:20 PM when we arrived back home. That made almost 7 full days on the road (and some of those nights as well). I took over 1,000 photos along the trip. After sorting through them and deleting a few, I have about 945 left.

There's just no way to share with you all the precious moments and photos of the journey, but in the next few days, I'd like to give you some highlights... and share some of the very best of the pictures I took.

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Day 1 was from Texas to Arkansas. It is a 9 hour drive to Little Rock and we stayed on the East side of Little Rock with some wonderful friends that we met while living there. On the way to Texarkana, we had to stop to fill up our ice chest and get snacks and stuff to make sandwiches so we could stop for lunch at a park. With gas prices so high, I figured sandwiches would help our budget go further.

We stopped in at New Boston and bought groceries at Wal-Mart and had an interesting conversation in the check-out line. A young guy from Miami was discussing the small-town's attitude with his girlfriend and I overheard him say, "There's more drama in this little town than in all of Hollywood." I had to chuckle.

"Why, what happened?" I butted in.

"See! There you go - looking for gossip!" He laughed. Then he asked where we were from.

"Oh, we are just passing through. We're on our way to Michigan."

"I'm sorry." He said.

I wondered if he had ever lived in Michigan. I wondered why he would move from Florida to New Boston... I mean - New Boston is a speck on the map in Texas. It is funny to think about the people along the way as you drive... what brought them to the towns they live in and where they work and what they do in their towns; even what they eat for dinner.

Since I had driven to Little Rock many times before, we hardly took any pictures along the way on our first day... except for the photos at the park (of which you already saw the best ones).

When we got to Little Rock it was getting late, so my friend took my children with her to some baseball games for her sons. We stayed at her house and rested - and rearranged the cooler, snacks, suitcases and other things in the back of the vehicle. I had time to check email and send a few pictures to Lisa before bed. Poor Kaden stayed up all night with his buddies... which would cause him to miss 1/2 of the day in the car on Day 2! He slept through 2.5 states!

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Day 2 was from Little Rock to Detroit! It was the longest drive on the trip. We left at 7 AM Friday and didn't get to our hotel until after 1 AM Saturday. We also lost an hour with the timezone change (so our actual time checking in was closer to 2:15 AM or so). That was not good news considering we had to be up at AT the convention at 7:30 AM to register and set up. Breakfast started at 6:00 AM, so we also had to fit that in to our itinerary. Competing after only 3 hours of sleep was not going to be easy!

We passed through Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, and Michigan. Here are a few pictures from the drive on Day 2...



Tomorrow I'll share pictures from our stop in Kentucky on Day 2. We met some interesting folks and tried a local dish. It will fit in great with my Field Trip Foto Friday theme, don't you think? My mom said, "This trip gives 'Field Trip' a new meaning." on our way home. I tend to agree. Be sure to pop in Saturday also. I'll share highlights from the actual Robotics Competition.

See you then!


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