March 17 - Memphis TN to Dallas TX (with a stop in Big Sandy)

GOOD NEWS!!! Before we left this morning, my Dad got a job! For those of you who didn't know, he's been off of work for a month and oppertunities were becoming less frequent. Praise God for him finding work. Unfortunatly he's going to have to fly home because he's supposed to start before we get back.

Fast friends!
Rebecca cried when we left - if only they lived closer!
This is the "castle" across the street from where we were staying
More friendships formed First flowers of the year!
My family cheers everytime we pass one of these signs. This one's actually over the Mississippi which we've crossed three times already and will cross at least once more before we get home. :-) Also note the house in front of us. We hit construction right after the bridge so it took us awhile to get around the house.
More stressful driving. Construction on highways with semi trucks while driving a 15 passenger van is always a little nerve wrenching. Mom and I are always glad Dad's driving when we hit those situations occur.
Okay so there's a story here! We got re-routed off the highway in redneck country (as Johnathan calls it lol) onto some old Texas back road. Well, this old road was NOT made for 15 passenger vans and semi's to pass eachother on! Talk about nerve wrenching! We never travel with out an adventure and Texas has given us a few for sure. We found this one pretty amusing (seriously) and we loved the old light blue pickup that followed us for miles with the grandpa and his grandaughters.

This is Dad asking for directions 5 or 6 miles off the highway on Farm Road 1002. Stupid mapquest.
The big Texas sky
ALERT! After mixup's, re-routes and a sketchy rural gas station, we arrived at the ALERT Academy (an hour late!)
This is the lovely "road" Johnathon took us on as we toured the outskirts of the Academy's property. I wouldn't recommend off-roading in a 15 passanger van.... I was so sure we would get stuck!
This is us with Jonathan. It was so good to see him again after all this time but like all of our other stops on this trip, it was simply to short of a time.

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I was so proud of my family. We made the entire 6 or 7 hour trip to Big Sandy with only one twenty five minute stop in which we walked a block, filled up with gas, went to the bathroom and ordered 12 soft tacos and a number of other things at Taco Bell. And that 25 minutes includes the time to get on and off the highway. We're getting really good at this stoping thing. I'm so proud of us! :-)

After we left Big Sandy we made the two and a half hour trip to Dallas to spend the night with more friends we havn't seen in a long time.