Texas

We arrived safely. It was quite the long trip but the boys did absolutely awesome. My biggest concern was JB but I honestly don't think he cried once in 3 days!
Twice we saw the moon come up and it was gorgeous. A huge orange full moon on the horizon. Made it a little easier to watch out for deer on the road. It was interstate about half the way and 2-4 lane highways the rest of the way. We stopped in Denver for 3 hours and visited with an old college roommate. It was neat to catch up with her. She has 4 kids, 3 of which are boys aged 11, 13 and 14. Although mine are not quite that close in age, I pictured myself exactly where she is in 10 years.
On the way down the boys learned about feed lots (there are some thing/smells you just forget until you are thrown back into them), saw cotton fields, watched geese flying and all the cool formations they make, saw a random field with lots and lots of camels and the boys learned about some of my favorite places to eat. Everytime I come back to Texas I get excited when I see Sonic, Chick-Fil-A, Long John Silvers Braums and many others. I found it interesting that there were some small towns where Dairy Queens had shut down, once a staple in any small town (they have even been called a Texas Stop Sign). A sign of the economy or a sign of something else taking it's place - Sonic. Saw a Sonic in every town.
I created Mom time in the car. When the older two would start getting whiny, I would turn the radio speakers up front, turn up some of my favorite music and tell them Mom could not hear them for a while.
One of the first rest areas we stopped at, the boys got out and ran around and threw the football while I got dinner ready. I had been keeping an eye on the restrooms because B enjoys his independence of being old enough to go into restrooms by himself. He asked to go in there and no one had been coming or going so I said yes. J followed suit. A minute later J comes running over to and says "there is a strange man talking to B." J was not overly concerned but my mom alert went up. I high tailed it over there and B was walking out just the time I got there. I started asking if he was talking with someone, etc and got a no to all of my answers. When it was time to leave, I headed to the restroom and told the boys to stand just inside the doorway. It was then I found out that in the bathrooms they have a recording of a man talking about weather info etc. This is what J had heard earlier.
When we did stop, I would put JB on the floor of the van (one of the seats out of the van) and lock the doors. He had just enough room to roll around and play with his toys and get his exercise while we got our exercise outside.
The last motel we stayed at had a sign that said "No refunds after 15 minutes of checking in." Made me nervous as to what one would discover after having been in a room 15 minutes but we all slept fine and other than one of those unidentifiable odors that I eventually noticed, all was well.