The Great Summer Road Trip 2012: Leg 4--Omaha to St. Louis

Pax living up the hotel life!  LOL

Our night in Omaha went well, and we were on the road by 8:20am for the second morning in a row.  This was probably the most challenging day of driving, so we were thrilled to get to St. Louis!  Graham couldn’t seem to quite settle in to a long stretch of sleep, so I was quite busy finding his pacifier and giving him little bits of a bottle to hopefully settle him down.  We stopped  more times for him than usual, but that’s ok.  Jackson was just in an ornery mood that did not make for a happy mommy and daddy :(  We had one stop planned for lunch and that was Oklahoma Joe’s in Kansas City.  Josh discovered this culinary gem on a trip for work this past winter.  The restaurant is IN a gas station!  It smelled delicious and tasted just as good!  We actually got our food to go and took it to a little park since the restaurant was PACKED!  The park was a dump, and the flies bugged us the whole time (HA!  Totally did NOT plan that pun, but notice I didn’t take it out either!), but it served the purpose of a stop for lunch and to feed Graham.  After lunch the boys napped for about an hour, and then it was really downhill between Jackson needing potty breaks, Graham wanting to eat most of the way, and the general feeling of wanting to get to our destination.  The hotel in St. Louis was definitely not as nice as the others, but it served it’s purpose.  

Jackson had a ball playing in the pool with Josh and then getting to eat his dinner in the hotel room.  He went to bed pretty easily too—not a small feat when we are all in one room including a dog and an infant!  Josh and I had a little trouble finding a good dinner option—we just wanted something yummy and cheap, and that proved difficult.  Papa John’s finally came through with a good deal on pizza, so we ate that and watched the Olympics.  

Since this was a slow day in terms of activities, I thought I would address how we ALL fit in the Prius for this grand adventure!  There is a "secret spot" in the Prius under the main "seat" of the hatchback.  It's a good sized well, and I use that to pack shoes and miscellaneous items that we won't need on the drive.  This time there were baseball mitts, card games, the Ergo, an empty backpack to use as the diaper bag as we trekked around, and dog stuff.  Pax gets most of the hatch--he shared this time with Josh's golf bag and our small cooler.  

I brought about 10 days worth of clothes for each of us, and that all fit into three duffel bags.  One large duffel went under each boys' feet, a small duffel wedged on top/middle of them over the hump area in the back seat.  

A large tote bag went on the stack under Graham and the breast pump bag went on top of the stack under Jackson's feet.  There was a large bag filled with toys/entertainment that sat on the seat between the carseats.  

I sat up front with the diaper bag and a small bag full of snacks for the day.