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Ok folks…now that we’re finally in Maine and I get to take a bit of a breather from driving this massive hunk of swerving metal….(at least the 3 state troopers that have pulled me over so far seem to think I’m swerving, but I think they’re just out to meet their quota…. 🙂 )…I thought I’d catch you all up on our family vacation…I’ll try not to bore you.

We ended up leaving 14 hours later than expected, due to a washing machine malfunction at the house. This delayed our packing a bit, but due to our great friends and neighbors, (also known as the greatest bass player in all of MercyMe,) we got all of our laundry done, packed and loaded up in the RV…which from here on out we shall refer to as ‘The Hurricane’. Not too sure why that’s a good name for an RV, but that’s what it says on the front, so that’s what we’re callin’ it…yet I digress.

Our goal was to make Nashville by the 1st day….we made it to Texarkana…2 hours from home…this is where our schedule began to fall apart. The next day we made it to Jackson, Tn. Still not to Nashville, and have yet to stop at any of the sites we had planned for. We did however discover The Mud City River Park. It’s in Memphis, Tn and it is AWESOME!!!! It’s an exact replica of the Mighty Mississippi, conveniently located directly beside the Mighty Mississippi. Ben and Millie had the time of their little lives ,(and Mommy and Daddy too,) pretending to be giants and splash their way all the way to the gulf of Mexico. Any one with kids 10 and under should totally go here!

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Our next stop was also unplanned, but fun none the less. We were trying to make it to some caves in Bristol, Tn, but again due to running WAY behind schedule, we didn’t get there till after the caves closed….who knew you could close a cave?!?!?!? So we ventured on to Knoxville, Tn…home to the 1982 World’s Fair. Here we just basically got out to run off some steam. 1st stop was the sunsphere…a lovely view of downtown Knoxville. Then on to the big ol’ fountain. Yes we were ‘that family’ the one where the pasty white dad runs through the fountain with his kids…blinding all who are unfortunate enough to cross his path. We may be a little bit country, but heck…this is an RV trip, right???

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To make up some time, we busted out a 17 hour drive the next day, with a goal of making it to Hershey, PA. Of course we went to the Hershey Chocolate World…(my stomach still hurts.) It was pretty awesome trying to maneuver ‘The Hurricane’ through, not only park traffic, but traffic for the Springsteen concert that was next door to the land o’ chocolate. We then tried to make it over to Lancaster to Amish country for dinner. Apparently, the Amish believe in this whole ‘ Early to bed, Early to rise’ thing and the whole town was shut down by 8pm. We have a goal of making it during Amish hours on the way home.

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Today’s stop was the best so far….We rolled into New London, RI and hopped on a ferry to take us over to Block Island, RI. This island is 7 miles by 3 miles and is amazing!!!!! The 55 minute boat ride over didn’t sit too well with me, Ben, or Millie, who exclaimed to all of us 20 minutes in…’My tummy hurts!!!!!!’ Luckily, there was no spewing.

The island looks like it was pulled straight out of the movie ‘The Truman Show’…it was beautiful. There was a little farm with both farm and exotic animals that we went to 1st. At the camel area, Millie exclaimed…’ AWWWWWW…some baby chicks’….then as she got closer, she realized her mistake. The ‘baby chicks’ were actually a rather large pile of Camel poo. It may be time to up the prescription on home girl’s glasses, huh??? After the ‘zoo’ we headed over to the beach where the kids played in the sand…buried and lost a toy garbage truck, and chased seagulls. The only thing better would have been if I could have had 2 Lobster Rolls instead of 1. AMAZING DAY!!!!!!!

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Mike.