The long drive home

We grew a lot on this trip.  Dad shrunk too.

We were very sad to leave Atlanta and especially Bubbe, but Dad told us that we were still in for an exciting couple of days on the road.  Boy was he right!  We took a few days to get back to Austin, enjoying all that the road had to offer.

Monday morning we made it out of the house earlier than Mom and Dad anticipated, which was a great start to the day.  The weather was perfect, as it had been on all of our driving days.  Before Hazel and I could even truly settle in, we were at the Birmingham Children's Museum.  This is definitely one of the nicer children's museums we've been to.

At the entrance, they have a bed of nails.  We all took turns lying on it.  It was surprisingly comfortable.

Hazel was super excited about the Bubble Room, so we went there next.  Dad helped us make giant bubbles around ourselves.  I watched Mom and Dad make some big bubbles, and then I figured out how to do it myself!  It was pretty cool.  After that, we found a giant play area where all of us could run around.  Turner was happy to have some space to crawl around in, and kept crawling in big circles around the place.  He was laughing a lot.  Hazel and I climbed up and down the playscape - we were pretty brave.  Mom thinks our new book Chico the Brave has made us much braver about things lately.

After that, we moved on to the water area.  We all donned our smocks - even Turner! - and played in the water for a while.  Turner stood the entire time, grabbing things as they floated by.  Its neat that he can play the same things as us more often.  Once we tired of the water area, we moved downstairs to the "World of Water"  This area featured a lot of the same things as the Atlanta Aquarium.  They had a shark and ray tank where you could reach in and touch the sharks.  Hazel actually did touched one!  She's really taking a lot of lessons from Chico the Brave.

It was so hot Hazel's eyes turned white

We looked at a lot more fish and then headed upstairs to look at dinosaurs.  Hazel liked this area because she could dig in the sand.  Mom took the opportunity to run back to the car and grab our lunch.  She and Dad had packed a ton of delicious and healthy food for the trip.  We had salads, fruit, sandwiches, and left the museum feeling very full. We were all quietly content for the next part of the drive.

Outlaws: We broke into this park to play on the playscape.

When we got to Jackson, Mississippi, we went back to Le Fleur's Bluff State Park. The great thing about this park is that it has a giant playscape. However, the restrooms were under construction, and there wasn't a ton of shade, and it was HOT. Mom made the best of it though, and we found a small shady spot on the playground to eat our yummy dinner. While we were walking out, a park range came driving up to us on the sidewalk. I asked her why she was driving on the sidewalk. She said the park was closed, and we shouldn't be here! Oops! We told her we were on our wait out and quickly walked back to the car, packed up, and left. Mom and Dad made a few jokes about being outlaws.

We stayed at the same Holiday Inn Express in Clinton that we did on our way to Atlanta.  This hotel was great.  They gave us a giant suite, which really helped since all of us were in the same room.  Since we got in relatively early, we headed down to the pool for a night-time swim.  Hazel especially thought it was really cool swimming at night.  She did a great job putting her face under and practicing swimming.  I found I could walk in the 3 foot depth in the shallow end and really liked that.  It did remind all of us that we're ready to get back to our swim lessons later this week.  There was another kid in the hotel pool the same time as us, and he was really great at swimming.  He was 6 years old.  I hope I'm that good at swimming next year.  After the swim, we were all pretty tired, so we took a quick bath and went to bed at a reasonable time.  That allowed us to get up early the next morning, and get a great jump on our second travel day.

Because of the way the trip was structured, our second day was a bit longer than our first day.  We drove about four hours to the Texas border and stopped at a Rest Area for lunch.  It was really nice to sit outside and eat al fresco, but Mom said she could definitely feel the difference in temperature as we headed back to Austin.  Even in the shade, it was pretty hot.  The rest area also had a tourist information building, so we went in there and all got giant "Don't Mess with Texas" stickers.

Back to the human puzzle.  This time with
our "Don't  Mess with Texas" stickers.

We drove for a couple more hours until we got to the Tyler Children's Museum.  This was the highlight of the second driving day.  We did a lot of the same things as last time.  Hazel and I played with the human body puzzle and spent a lot of time in the pretend restaurant. Turner went back to the toddler area and took advantage of the opportunity to crawl around.  He also waved and talked to everyone that went by.  Hazel ran around the "bounce house" (a mat at the bottom of a climbing wall) and I played with the gravity golf balls for a while.  After a couple of hours at the Museum, Dad said we had to get going again.  I think at this point, we were all getting pretty tired of being in the car, but we were excited about being able to sleep in our own bed.

After the children's museum, we drove for a few hours before everyone started getting hungry for dinner.  Unfortunately, the next few rest areas were either closed, didn't have restrooms, or didn't have shade.  So, Mom and Dad decided to be outlaws again.  We stopped at a random Holiday Inn Express along the highway, pulled out all of our dinner stuff from the car, and we walked through the lobby straight into the dining room and had a nice air-conditioned dinner.  We got a few curious looks from the front desk, but they just assumed we were staying at the hotel.  Dad even grabbed a couple of cookies for me and Hazel.

We got in pretty late on Tuesday night and all three of us went to bed without much fuss, dreaming of our next road trip, whenever that may be...

As promised, here are pictures from our whole trip.