Sheep Guarding Llama

We got up this morning in Cuba, Missouri and went out to the local bakery with Paul and Karen.  We got some food there but did not stay long.  We have a lot of driving to do today and we need to get down to the old house in Carrollton, Texas.

After the bakery, while everyone was getting ready, Paul and I went to his office and I got a tour of their large manufacturing facility which was really interesting.  They have a really impressive new facility there and are expanding a lot.

After leaving Paul’s we went down Route 66 and visited the world’s tallest rocking chair that is there.  One of those quintessential Route 66 driving experiences.

The drive went well down to Carrollton.  It was late when we got in and got unpacked.  We are tired.  A long day, a long week, a long month. We are looking forward to having some time to just crash at our house and regroup.  We have almost a month here before we expect to be off to either Mexico or Guatemala.  That’s our next thing to figure out.

Rachel has the master bedroom.  The girls are sleeping on the floor of Luciana’s old room.  Dominica and I are using Liesl’s old room.

We got to the house and had to get ready right away for a house party that Rachel had invited us to.  This was her “Classy Mixer” party that she has been planning for some weeks.  It ended up going until six or seven in the morning.  Quite the party.

It’s driving day for us!  We left dad’s farm in New York this morning and headed west for Cuba, Missouri where we are planning to crash for the night.

The drive went fine.  Nothing really special. We do this drive all of the time.

It was pretty late when we got into Cuba, Missouri to Paul Chiodo’s house where we hung out for about an hour before crashing for the night.

This is it, our final day in New York for 2016.  Today’s project is to get a new car and pack.

I had to run to Batavia on my own this morning and take the little Spark into get the hood latch fixed so that it would be able to be sold in NY.  What a pain.  While I was there I walked around Batavia a bit going down to the Taco Bell and picking up breakfast for myself.

Once the car was done I went back to Taco Bell and got breakfast for the family and drove back home.

We went up to Webster again today and we were able to, after a lot of work, get our new 2015 Nissan Quest.  Unfortunately it is in black, but that could not be helped.  It drives great and is in really good condition.  We are pretty happy and the girls are going to be thrilled.  They have been asking for a minivan for a long time.  And they said that they really liked the one that we had over the weekend.  Liesl told me to buy one just like that one, and I did.  So she cannot complain after this.

Thanks to my dad who paid for the majority of the new minivan.  We would have not been able to get it otherwise.

All evening after getting the minivan was about packing.  We leave for Texas tomorrow.

What a crazy summer it has been.  And hard to believe that as summer is drawing to a close that we are going to be heading down south to Texas to go to our own house in just two days!  Boy have our plans changed a lot throughout this year.  Even at the end of the spring when we were leaving Romania we had no idea that we were going to be doing anything like this.  Our lives really are rather adventurous.

This evening we went out to the 585 Rockin’ Burger Bar with Art and Danielle.  We watched a local band play.  The girls had a good time.  I got to drive Art’s new Camaro up there, too.

Only a few days left in New York for the year.  We are leaving to go to Texas later this week and will not be back to New York until 2017 and, if all goes to plan, only for a week or so then.

Today’s project is to buy a minivan.  We went up to Webster this evening and did some shopping at the Hertz Car Sales location there.  Dominica and looked and they have a minivan available there, three actually, that are 2015s and essentially identical to the Nissan Quest that we drove over the weekend, also from Hertz.

We spend many hours looking at the minivans and managed to pick out one that we wanted and got that one reserved for us.  We need to get paperwork for our Chevy Spark and come up with it tomorrow so that we can do a trade in.  The other two minivans are going to auction today so they are going to hold back the one for us.  Hopefully everything goes well tomorrow.

We have had great luck with every Nissan that we have ever driven and I like that they are part of the Renault group who makes all of my favourite cars in Europe, including Dacia in Romania.  We really need something larger as our stuff will not fit in the Spark to drive it down to Texas later this week!  That is going to be a problem.

It was decently late when we got back home, but we are looking forward to having a shiny new vehicle tomorrow.