Westward Ho!

(Ella excited about mountains)

(Monks Mound)

(View of other mounds from Monks Mound)

(What the ancient Cahokians saw from Monks Mound)

While in Champaign, we decided we had too much stuff and shipped 3 Rubbermaid totes off to California. Even with those 130 pounds gone, the car is still low, but not as low. We even have a wee glimpse of our back window, which we didn’t have before. Champaign is one of our favorite places, and it was great to be able to hang out with Katie and her boyfriend Tebbin, and to take a couple more classes with C.M. Denis again. We didn’t get to see everyone we wanted to see, but it was good none the less.

From Champaign we did our first bit of true westering, 40 miles to Clinton Illinois, to see Shelley’s Grandparents. We went out to dinner with them and Shelley’s aunts Julie and Lisa. We emptied the car again, and did what is hopefully a final repack. We have most of what we need in easy reach, and only a few bags that we need to take out at each stop, instead of every bag, like we did in Champaign and Clinton. We ended up renting Nanny McPhee, which was pretty funny.

On Thursday evening did a little backtracking to Bloomington, where we saw Shelley’s cousin Kylie and her husband Ryan, and their children Devin, Ashlyn, Madelyn and their newborn Kaitlyn. We had dinner with them and hung out for a while, and then went to see Nate’s friend Andrew Hanna, who is finishing up his last year at ISU. Nate picked up a couple more books and a CD to make up for what we mailed off to California, which Shelley was not quite okay with.

Friday afternoon we hit the road for St. Louis. After driving an hour outside of Clinton we realized we forgot quite a few really important things, like saying goodbye to Shelley’s aunts, we are the worst niece and nephew ever but after calling and talking to them, Shelley was ok with not turning around to go say goodbye. After 500 miles we’ve finally left our comfort zone. We’ve been to Champaign, Clinton and Bloomington so often that it just felt like another weekend trip, but now we’re truly off.

Our first stop along the way to St. Louis was Cahokia Mounds, we arrived around 3 pm. At first glace the mounds just make you want to laugh, it is huge piles of dirt, I mean huge. One mound called Monks Mound was 100 feet high and covered 14 acres, it was two tiered. We went to the interpretive center and learned a lot of interesting facts, it made you respect what you saw more and not just want to laugh that you drove all that way to see piles of dirt. Ella was not too thrilled about the interpretive center and the 15 min. factual movies “scared her,” those are her own words. We got her to be good while we looked at the exhibits by telling her we could climb the “big mountain”(Monks Mound) if she was good. By the time we were ready to climb the mountain, it was raining but you try to explain to a two year old we can’t do the one thing she has been looking forward to, so we climb the “mountain” in the rain. And when I say we, it was Nate and I climbing taking turns holding Ella in the sling. Nate would like to educate you all on the mounds so here is his spiel on the mounds. Cahokia is the largest archaeological site north of Mexico, and was the major center of the Mississippian civilization from 900-1200. It is also a United Nations World Heritage Site, so you should all go see it. Go to http://www.cahokiamounds.com/cahokia.html for more information.

Oh yeah on our way to the mounds we made a quick detour to see the worlds largest catsup bottle. It was quite a disappointment, it is a water tower shaped like a catsup bottle (way lame), because of this detour and the disappointment, Ella no longer likes catsup. She kept saying “I don’t wanna get catsup, I don’t like catsup” and crying. It was pretty sad.

Before we even left Naperville, Shelley was convinced that the car would be able to make it, just not necessarily in one piece. She figured we would loose a door or some other part on the road. And so, as we were going to Monks Mound to climb it, we put Ella in her car seat and Nate tried to close the door, and it got stuck almost all the way closed. Shelley had jinxed us. The back was open about a half inch, but the front of the door was latched, so we couldn’t close it or open it. Needless to say, we kind of panicked, and we sat there in the rain for a while trying to fix it. We finally went to a gas station, and tried some more. Finally, we got sick of it and just started hitting the door trying to close it. Shelley finally gave it a good smack with her hips, and that jarred it enough so we could open and close it. So now we have to be extra careful and gentle closing the door. It will hold up but we just have to close it from the back now, we can’t pull it closed like you normally do for a mini-van. But after that episode we hit up Monk’s Mound. Once we get our camera figured out, we’ll put up pictures from Cahokia.

After we left, we headed into St. Louis proper, leaving Illinois behind for a good long time. After a small bout of car sickness with Ella, we met up with Tebogo, Nate’s friend from Capoeira, and Nate took his class that night. Tebogo and his girlfriend Leslie put us up in their fabulous, spacious, amazing, third floor apartment, and we stayed up late eating pizza, drinking beer and talking.

Our wifi spot, Panera in Kansas City, has been closed for half an hour now, and we should probably be heading out. We shall try our best to post more tomorrow, especially pictures.