St Louis>Indianapolis

Woke up all intact with nothing stolen.  Showers in the urban campground super clean.  We pulled out at 7 AM without waking up the kids.  Nice quiet ride for a few hours before they all woke up.  When they woke up, it got me thinking of the expressions we say everyday relative to living in the rv.

“what are you at?” meaning what % battery life, we can only charge 5 devices, Courtney has obsession she has to charge to 100% before unplugging, Kerrin always tries to stay at 100% Connor is always hovering around 12%.  Brian will leave his device in the rv to charge when we get out if he does not think he needs any photos.  Whoever is the highest % will get unplugged to let the next device charge.

“do we have water?” two meanings, did we fill a jug with potable water to drink while rolling or do we have enough water in the tank to pee and flush the toilet while rolling

“can I level?” when we are done setting up someone pushes buttons to auto level

“can I put the slides out” when we arrive we push buttons to slide parts of rv out for more space, but can’t do it until water, electric and sewer cabinets opened

“everyone off the hotspot” laurie gave us her hotspot that supports 5 devices, but the more kids on it, the slower it goes, and you need everyone off but one kid to download a movie, and now and then Courtney who controls it will knock everyone off and you will hear all the yelling at the same time

“get me my V8 on ice with a splash of pepper”   “now”  everymorning when Mike starts driving he issues this command and nobody responds and they all argue why doesn’t he make his drink before we leave.

“tell Brendan get his disgusting toes off my cushion.” no explaination needed.

“where is my speaker?” ” i am taking away everyone’s phones until my speaker is in my hand.”  Mike has a portable speaker to listen to pandora and it is always missing.

“Someone look around and find my sunglasses.” nobody responds, till he yells, Mike puts his sunglasses in a different spot everynight and kids have to engage in a scavenger hunt to find them when he starts driving.

“Mom tell Brian to stop staring at me while I am doing my pushups.” Brendan exercises everynight on a yoga mat infront of Brian’s bunk and I swear he waits until Brian gets into bed to exercise.

“What are the showers like, What are the toilets like.”

“Can we dump now?’ Brendan and Connor have to dump the gray and black water tanks before we pull out of any site.

“mom tell me when we are going to a new state?” Brendan takes a pix of each welcome sign for a new state and we tell him when we are 3 seconds away so he has become skilled at quick pix

“He/She already drank his/her gatorade.”  Whatever we buy for drinks/snacks the kids divide them and ration them out equally.  It is not pretty if Mike or I try to drink a gatorade and screws up someones daily quota.

We arrived after multiple attempts to find the correct entrace at the Indy Speedway, we could hear the cars racing around the track.  When we pulled through a super narrow tunnel the guy at the end told us to pull right next to the confession stand.  Kids had a blast watching the cars race around, then we toured the museum, our guide was super enthusiastic and made us all pose for pictures and was really funny arranging us in different poses for the pictures.

Then we headed to my brother in law Frank’s family’s compound 20 minutes from the track.  When we arrived at the cul de sac with Noreen and Franks home and their daughters Catherine’s home we realized that we would not be able to turn the rv around, luckily we could leave it on the road between the two houses.  We def. looked like the Griswalds cousin Eddie showing up in this beautiful neighborhood with kids on the roof of the rv lifting branches and having to park in middle of the road.  The Deane’s homes were like being at a resort.  Beautiful decks, pools, flower beds, and then the food started coming out, lasagna, salad, garlic break, cold drinks, desserts.  We were treated to a feast.  The Deane cousins prepared a water balloon fight (after we warned the kids to act like humans we see them sprinting through the gardens in the middle of a water war.)  After dinner swimming in Catherine’s super heated pool.  Kids were happy to not be worrying about campground guests using the pool as a toilet.  Fun having the little cousins tagging along with our crew, kids were all great and did not corrupt any of the little kids.  BOth Noreen and Catherine had laundry going for us, super bonus.  Woke up to a breakfast of bacon, eggs, muffins and fruit.  Kids did a good job of not acting like they had not seen bacon in a year and actually ate like civil humans.  After lots of hugs goodbyes Frank guided Mike as he backed up the road.  We made it out and headed to Universtity of Notre Dame.