We’ll it has been, and continues to be a very long day. I’m writing this from the backseat of our Honda Odyssey. It is 8:14pm, and we’ve just left Austin, passing by an accident that slowed us down a good deal. Nathan is driving, Tera is next to him in the front passenger seat, setting up our family facebook site. Anna is on the far left middle row, sleeping. Jacob is playing his 20 minutes/day of computer games on his kindle fire. I’m on the far right middle row, typing this up, and trying to find a comfortable place for my feet, with the backpack, camera, snacks, and shoes in my ground space. This is much more cramped than an airplane. Megan is in the back seat reading on her kindle, and begging for us to start the movie. Tyler is in the middle, reading on his kindle. Emily is on the right, behind me, headphones in, talking to her friend back at BYU . . . . . . . . . Click below right for more. . . This Tuesday started early (think 1:30am early) when Tera and I flew in to Dallas on the red-eye flight from our weekend getaway to San Diego. We slept for about 5 hours before getting up to finish the packing. We had MUCH to do. The kids were mainly packed as far as clothes go, but everything else still needed to be packed up for the van. We have a Honda Odyssey, with a soft-top luggage bag for the top, and a 2’ x 5’ platform attached to the hitch in the back, plus all the space in the regular back. There is a lot of space, but we have a tendency to fill every bit of space that we make available to ourselves. The top bag is filled with our instruments (1 electric cello, 4 violins, 1 guitar, 1 ukelele) and assorted other items. The platform has all 8 suitcases, along with our 88-key electric keyboard. The storage space in back is full of everything else, kitchen necessities, food, homeschooling books, Spanish books, music books, hygiene items, etc, etc. We also had to clean up Grammy's house from our 4 months of living there. We started around 7:00am pulling everything together, and by 3:30pm, we were finally ready to get on the road. We said our goodbyes, got all the kids in the car, and Nathan turned the key in the ignition to get going . . . . . and all we heard was CLICKETY-CLICKETY-CLICK! Ugh, the battery was dead. What a lovely omen to begin our journey. Of course, our jumper cables were buried in the back, and it would take 20 minutes to fish them out. (unpack the entire platform, to be then able to open the back door). Grammy’s cables were old and corroded, and they didn’t work. Luckily, a neighbor was able to loan us a set, and we finally got on the road. Of course, we were riding so low, that the platform scraped the road coming out of the driveway. I fear the speed bumps in Mexico . . . . . So now, we have a 7 hour drive to get to Laredo tonight, we’ll roll in around midnight. We surely won’t be driving this late through Mexico, but for our last night in the USA, we’re making it a late evening. Wow, the journey south has finally started, and I hope and pray for safety and success!
4 Comments
:)
1/24/2018 06:23:58 am
:)
Reply
Erik
1/28/2018 07:33:32 pm
Who 'ere you may be, thanks for the smiley
Reply
rateske
1/24/2018 02:27:35 pm
We pray and hope for your safety as well. Enjoy the journey and the wonderful memories and service you'll encounter. We look forward to following you on your gap year and the things we will share and learn vicariously through your experiences. Success and safety to you all! Love, the Teske's
Reply
Erik
1/28/2018 07:33:02 pm
Thanks for your prayers Amy and Rob! We look forward to seeing you again in April when we pass back through the Netherlands.
Reply
Leave a Reply. |
Plan? What plan?Our first Gap Year was a fabulous "2017-2018 School Year" of travel: from the Netherlands to Jordan to Texas to Hawaii to Mexico to Central America to London and back to the Netherlands. Our "2018 Summer Vacation" took us all around Western Europe, back to the USA on a transatlantic cruise, a road trip through New York and into Canada, and ending up in Utah. We have now kicked off the "2018-2019 School year" with a trip to Asia. Follow along with us on our visits to new places, as well as revisiting some of our favorite places from our time living there. It's going to be great!!
Archives
March 2019
|