Missouri Trip: Day 1

Fly, fly, drive, drive, drive. That was day one. We woke up at the crack of dawn and drove to the airport. Flight #1: Phoenix to Chicago. This is a picture of mucky Chicago from the airplane window. It's much less mucky in person.

Not that everyone in Chicago is mean/dumb (that's where my mom's from and she's nice!) but the chick at the bagel place in the airport was mean/dumb. And then my mom went to Starbucks (to purchase coffee free drinks of course!) and she ordered and the guy looked at her like she was dumb. He had no clue what she was trying to order...and it was on the menu, nothing strange... So I guess we found the two not nicest/dumbest people in the Chicago airport...but I forgive Chicago, it's not it's fault :) So one bagel and a glorified strawberry shake later, we were off on flight #2, Chicago to St. Louis!

Look! Big floofy trees & cheap gas! We must be in MISSOURI!! (We later found gas for $2.19 not fair huh! And notice the Carls Junior sign in the background does not say Carls Junior...it says Hardees) I was FINALLY in the same state as my hubby for the first time in almost 3 months!! Woot Woot!! I was sooooo excited! So after a very bumpy bus ride from the airport to Thrify rental car, we got the keys to our Toyota Camry (they get awesome gas mileage by the way!) and with the help of a very nice gold toothed man (his teeth were awesome! I wish I had a picture!!) we were then on our way to Fort Leonard Wood (aka the middle of pretty much no where).

So we're driving along...looking at all of the colorful floofy trees. I've lived in AZ my whole life...so leaves are a novelty to me :) And then we stumbled upon the most magnificent store EVER!! Molly Brown's Fireworks!!!

Again, I've lived in AZ my entire life...fireworks are illegal here. This was the COOLEST STORE EVER!!! Let me put it this way...there are some people in this world who love Christmas ornaments. So if they stumbled upon a store chalk full of ornaments, they'd be pretty excited, right? Well my favorite holiday is the 4th of July. My favorite part about it, fireworks. I was in a store FILLED with fireworks! I wanted to buy one of everything!! The only problem...airport security...booooo! Anything I bought, I'd have to play with there...and we were staying about 5 minutes from an Army base...I figured I'd probably get in trouble if I put on a fireworks show. Then my mom got a brilliant idea (if you work for the Post Office or the FBI...please ignore the following statement) We bought some sparklers and mailed them home!! Yay! My mom was even sneaky and put the return address as the hotel we stayed at. Ha ha! (again, please don't tell on us!!) So, Molly Brown is my hero! :) Check out the picture below (ignore my dad looking bored. I think he was reading a fireworks box.) The mass of fireworks behind him - that's not even half of the store!! A-mazing! And not only did they sell fireworks...they sold...

Cutsie wootsie little pumpkins!! I got one of those because he could come to the airport with me :) He's a pie pumpkin. He even came with directions on how to cook him. So he'll either stay as my little pumpkin friend (until he gets mushy), or he'll end up as my little pie friend...not sure if I have the heart to cook him yet. Maybe by Thanksgiving. He's cute though huh :) (my dad closed his eyes, silly dad)

So after our adventures in fireworks land, we drove, looked at floofy trees, drove, more trees, and more driving. Then we FINALLY got to the wonderful Red Roof Inn. We ate dinner at Ruby Tuesdays (they have a yummy salad bar!) and then paid a visit to the local Wal-Mart. Then...I got a phone call from Private Dozier!!! YAY!! I was like "Guess where I am!! Five minutes from where you are!!!" It was very exciting! When all was said and done, it was back to the Red Roof Inn for some shut eye. Ya right! I was way to excited! But I did eventually fall asleep, after all, we had to get up early again on day 2. I had to get all gussied up for my hubby's graduation. :) Stay tuned...there's more to come!