Meet Me in St. Louis

4:15 Central 2:15 AZ

St. Louis is a beautiful city! With the Gateway Arch stretching above everything and the Mississippi River flowing swiftly between Illinois and Missouri, I think that it is amazing! We wanted to go up in the arch. (Umm, actually, my family wanted to go, I didn’t want to have anything to do with going up that high.)Anyway, there was too long of a wait to get up there, so it didn’t work out. But, we did get to go into the museums and see a quick movie about the making of the arch. I thought that it was pretty cool.

Now we have just crossed into Illinois, and we have about four hours of driving to go. We are going through Springfield, so that will be fun. I really like going to the capitals of states…I don’t know why. Anyway, there are cornfields EVERYWHERE! (haha, kind of like the cows the other day) They are stretching from the road to a barn and a silo somewhere, and then they’ll keep going past the barn. It’s soo cool. And, where there aren’t barns and cornfields there are thick bursts of trees! I’ll post pictures eventually. (You know, you can probably tell that I’m from AZ and that I’ve never really been in the real country or lived out of the state by how excited I am by things that probably seem real miniscule.)

So we got off from Springfield, MO today around 10:00 (CST, you can figure out AZ time) and then I slept for nearly two hours on the ground of the car! Haha, it was wonderful! But, then Christian woke me up by pulling the cell phone from my pocket…and then he was really hyper and continued to bug me and Trenton. Ohh man, I’m way happy that this car ride is almost over!

Well, that’s all for now!

<3!!

P.S. My birthday is in 8 days!!!

Wide Open Spaces [Pt 2]

1:30pm~Texas Time (11:30 AZ time) August 31, 2007

Driving Across the Texas Panhandle

I think that Texas people are uhh…grumpy. So we are driving across the Texas Panhandle right now. We left Tucumcari, NM around 10:00am (New Mexico time, so 9:00 AZ time). Texas, at least this part, is interesting. There are loonnnggg spans of grass to our left and right, and you can see where the vast blue sky dotted with puffy white clouds meets the open plains. The rolling sea of green is speckled with black and brown cows. EVERYWHERE. It’s actually really cool! You just see them grazing lazily acting like they own the place. (They probably do).

Anyway, we stopped in Groom, Texas. (AKA, middle of nowhere) We ate lunch at a DQ where three ladies well into or past their 60s served us. It was a little community diner, but I don’t know where the community lives because there are hardly any houses. (maybe they are invisible or underground or something) It was cute and all, but the ladies were grumpy and either didn’t like us (because we didn’t have accents and we probably acted like we were from the ‘upscale’ west…maybe they have a grudge on us or something, I don’t know. Do we even act a certain way?) Or maybe they just didn’t want to work in the middle of nowhere with each other. In conclusion, they weren’t very happy or anything…so we didn’t get the best impression of them.

Last night we got into Tucumcari about 1:30am (their time...12:30am AZ time) and it took us awhile to get to sleep. Of course, I got the privilege to sleep on the super uncomfortable sleeper-sofa. It was bad, and I was really sad about it. Mostly because I couldn’t necessarily sleep on the thing…it was a bummer. But, now I’m tired, and there is really nothing to do in the car with two people sleeping, not the best music playing, and no internet. So, I’ll probably sleep. But first I’m gonna read the rest of the selection from my biology book, and the probably my art book too. I’m way behind in those two, and I think that there are due dates with the school, but I don’t really know. Better to be safe than sorry.

<3!

Wide Open Spaces...Dixie Chicks..again

Wide Open Spaces

Driving in the Middle of Nowhere: 4:30pm

So, we got off from Scottsdale, AZ at about 12:30. According to my Grammy, that was only ‘30 minutes later than planned.’ Umm…not so, we really wanted to get out about 9:30. But, if my Grammy is happy, then I think that I am too.

So, we are driving up to St. Johns, AZ (who knew there was such a thing) from Show Low. We are surrounded by rolling hills with little bushes spread throughout. The sky is a brilliant blue with great puffy white clouds crowding the sky. It is so beautiful and looks like something that you would see on either a nature show or in a painting. I took a few pictures that I’ll post when I get a chance…probably sometime next week.

We are driving up to St. Johns because we somehow managed to miss the turn up to Holbrook and we went to Show Low instead. We are seriously just all messed up in everything, it’s kind of funny. So this detour is going to end up being the same as if we didn’t mess anything up. You could almost go with the, ‘if it didn’t happen it was never close’ phrase…

Ohh…I didn’t mention what happened with the van. My dad used the wrong key…he got a new one from Home Depot recently and he tried to use it. But it didn’t have the right computer chip in it; therefore, the van would just shut off when we tried to make it move. So, there was nothing wrong with the van’s fuel pump or anything else, it was the computer chip that didn’t make it into the key.

Haha, I think that it is just so ironic and almost funny the way things have happened. (with the van, with making the wrong turn)

Mkay, that's all for now! More tomorrow!

Wide Open Spaces--Dixie Chicks

God Has a Plan for Me in Chicago

So, my brother just came in the room and started singing God has a plan for me in Chicago, so that's pretty much where the title of this blog came from. (if you were wondering...and it's not a real song, Trenton just made it up off the bat.)

So, I want that to be true for me too, I'm not doubting it at all, it's gonna be a great experience...I just have to keep telling myself that, and once I get there, it will be, but for now, it's just hard and sad.

But, church was AMAZING tonight, Kenna got me this really cute little cactus (it's fake), but it's seriously amazing. And I got to talk with everyone (in my group) for awhile, and it was just a lot of fun...but then I went to Impact to say goodbye to Julie & JT, but they had already left...and that made me WAY sad. Cause I totally told them that I was going to see them...but my mom came late, and it just didn't work out...I'm sad about that, because it's gonna be four months before I see them again. Haha, but I did get to see Aryana, which was pretty special, cause I didn't think that I was going to see her!

Ohh, and our van broke down (that would be the vehicle that will get us to Illinois)...haha, it's in the shop, so we are hoping to get it by noon tomorrow, otherwise we are going to have to reroute our trip and stop in different places and redo our hotel reservations. And the thing is that we have a full 9 hours of driving tomorrow. So, if you put the 9 hours of driving, a stop for food, and the fact that there are 3 boys in the car, it's gonna take about 10 1/2 hours...so if we leave at noon, we'll get to the hotel late.

But, my room is all packed up, so I can wake up at 7:00 to help pack up the Uhaul, and seal all the boxes in my room up, and then go over to my grandparents for breakfast at 8:00, and then I can sleep until the van is ready for us...or work on school. I really need to work on school, so that's a dilemma. Oh well...

Mkay, I'm pretty sure that that's all for now! I'll probably write more tomorrow about our trip to Tucumkari, New Mexico.

Love you all and always,
Eliana

P.S. Haha, I signed my name in Webdings! That's cool!

God Has a Plan for Me in Chicago--Trenton Slagle