The lack of available wireless internet connections combined with the long hours of driving and sickness that ran rampant through the family in the second half of the trip didn’t help the posting department any. We are safe and sound at home now, a little early which gives time to post some pictures of the rest of our trip. Let’s see… I think I left you with a picture of the Davis’ van up on the back of a flat bed tow truck… yep! That was the last one.

The van took a couple of days to fix so we spent this down time at the Davis’ relatives house that was located very conveniently three hours from where they had the brake down… still in Kansas. Here are some pictures of us in the front of their house experimenting with the sailboat…

Captain Dave ready to command the seas! Or the pavement…

Afterwards, the older kids walked over to the nearby train tracks to do some good ol’ fashioned penny squishing. Scout Ben was trying to track the train…

I don’t know what Nate and I were doing here. Just being goofy I guess…

You can guess what the thinking was behind this one…

After our lovely visit with the relatives, we headed out early to try and make up some lost time. We wanted to get to Peoria, Illinois by 1830hrs for a planned baseball game so we left at 0600hrs. The next state? I’ll show you…

I didn’t see any people welcoming us… just a sign. John Wayne’s birthplace was not too far off the desired route, so we made a slight detour to make Nic happy…

Here’s the first house of one of the greatest actors known to man. Second only to Gary Cooper…

After our long trek through Iowa we finally made it to Illinois, right on schedule…

Unfortunately, people were more interested in watching the ball game or socializing with new found friends than they were in taking pictures. So we will skip to the next day which was spent at a wildlife park. Joe and Sara were playing with an amazingly still elk/deer thing…

At the park they had a 52 foot slide. Kate and Sara enjoyed every foot…

Later that evening there was an ordination/dinner/dance. No pictures from the first two, so you will have to be content with dancing pictures. “Unfortunately” I was beginning to feel under the weather, and “unfortunately” dad had twisted his ankle the week before, so sad to say, we had to sit on the sidelines. If you are in the Midwest then the Virginia Reel must be danced…

Sara never stops smiling…

We stayed at the McDonald’s house for a couple of nights in Illinois. This shot was taken pretty much at their back door. A mixture of Californians, Illinoisans and Tennesseans. Lovely pond…

Another group shot of Californians, Illinoisans and this time Arizonans… 

We left the McDonald’s and headed about an hour south to stay with some more friends. Yes… it is always green over there…

Upon our arrival at the Bandy’s house we started our ritual of getting the RV and boat set up for the night, but this time we discovered something had gone wrong. Take a look for yourself…

Yeah… not good. If those last two bolts had failed, then we would have said bye bye to the boat, probably on the freeway. Let this be a lesson to you… never tailgate!!

At the Bandy’s we enjoyed a wonderful evening of Dutch Blitz (Nertz), amazing food, and a rousing game of “smack the other person with the boffer”. A boffer is a length of ¾” pvc, with pipe insulation, wrapped in duct tape. Nice and soft, but hard at the same time. Needless to say someone got "boffed" quite nicely towards the end of the game. Care to guess who?...

Yep… right in the face. Thanks for that one Ashton…

The next morning we said our goodbyes to the Bandys and headed back north to visit some more new found friends. While en route we noticed a bit of wind rushing in to the RV from the bottom of the windshield. Then a little more… then a little more… until it got to the point where the bottom of the windshield popped out, so much that Ben could see the freeway through the space. And what do you do when the windshield pops out in the middle of nowhere? Use duct tape!! That is exactly what we did…

Ben likes to search for an internet connection where ever he goes, in the weirdest places…

The next day while the windshield was being fixed, we headed up to a nearby lake in Wisconsin to take the sailboat on its maiden voyage…

Second time around on setting up the boat…

The mast goes up…

Thanks to Jonathan Erber for this great picture. It only looks like the mast got struck by lightning. No clouds… see?...

And last but not least, the sails…

The boat was ready to go in the water…

We came to find out that it does not sink…

Hoist the mainsail ye lads!!...

Swab the poop decks!! Or just sit there and enjoy the ride…

Cruising along on Lake Geneva with No-Neck Laura…

While some were sailing others were relaxing on the shore…

Or swinging on the shore. See the sand?…

Everybody across the country knows how to play Nertz…

The great chef and baker Ben decided to make a couple of cheesecakes for our wonderful hosts. See the orange behind Anthony’s neck? That is the mastermind and we are his grunt laborers…

Group picture with the Erbers…

We left the Erber’s and headed south towards Springfield and Lincolns tomb…

That would be him… or his box… or whatever you call it…

This sign in the bathrooms at the tomb just amused me to no end…

Missouri was the next state on our travels. It was the first time any of us had ever been there…

Not many pictures taken in Missouri. Moving on to Kansas…

And this was the only picture I could come up with in Kansas…

Moving on to Colorado…

Notice how that picture looked hot and dry? Well this one is in the same state but totally opposite…

We didn’t get a New Mexico state line sign picture, but we did arrive there at our friends the Haroldsons, who also know how to play Nertz and are crazy good at it…

The Haroldson family is full of musicians, so I had to pull my violin out to join in…

And a group picture of the two families…

Now for the long drive home through the desert. Arizona to be specific…

Laura helped with the navigation along the straight flat roads…

A bit of dad’s artistic eye in combination with an interesting rock formation…

This one is for Mrs. Loughman. A picture of our sailboat in the middle of the desert…

We made a push for home and drove into the night. The California state line sign didn’t turn out so well in the dark…

Yep… we’re back in California with the crazy California drivers that try and make U-turns on Jack Tone Road in a semi truck. That guy has courage…