Just starting the recap of the Road Trip? Start here. For Part 1 of Day 2 you can just start here.

We were driving on Country Road Y West and North through Wisconsin, the sky was an amazing blue and in between listening to A Swans Song on CD or the silence of the road with our windows opened – Jessica would let me know when she wanted to stop for photos or random dance parties. Day 2 was relaxed, a true journey.

She loved the roadside beauty – kept taking photos of (what will be blurry snap shots) and just kept saying “When they’re blurry they look like paintings!” which was a great reminder to see things differently.

We had so much fun on Day 2 making progress on the road in a car with no air conditioning, on a road trip I forgot to pack shorts for (for myself, not her).

Pretty soon we stopped in a town the length of one city block. There was a Post Office and not much else – but we had our camera’s and we both saw something – so we danced in the streets, took photos of their weeds and flags and skipped on their sidewalks.

With stretched legs and a few good smiles from the Post Office patrons – we were back on the road. We kept seeing all these churches with steeples and about 6 in I decided I’d stop to take photos of the rest I saw that day. (We caught three more.) But there were triple that amount of barns and puffy clouds.

Plus, we had bubble gum.

We cranked the radio, opened all the car doors, danced in the road and blew bubbles and marveled at the sky.

And then this happened …

She perfected her art of blowing a bubble – before it was a frustrating practice. 7 pieces of BubbleYum later – she turned pro.

 

It was a great day, Day 2. She took my phone and started making videos which I’ll work into one big montage of the trip at some point. It’s taken so long to write this all down because getting home wasn’t one big quiet space to sort this all out. I walked in to a house of people, my little guy and my big one. My pixie at my side – and we all wanted to live this life together. Not sit in a room and write about living it. So, the rest is coming slowly but surely. But Day 2 isn’t even half over yet: Hold on!

We played the ABC game to pass time in the car and soon found another odd-stop to detour for.

Before the awesome detour she fell asleep right as my bladder was about to burst. So I hit the main highway for a detour towards DISTANCE and spent the next hour and half paying attention to her little sleepy fingers and those eyelashes. Also, I did a lot of crying. Happy tears while giggling.

She woke up and I lept out of the car to the nearest bathroom. We gathered our gas station supplies of a literal gallon of water, starburst and beef jerky and went to see about this “center of the world” thing.

She … um … didn’t really believe me. Or the scientist.

This happens when she can’t make sense of something, or doesn’t have all the information to make the decision about it for herself. Half way between the equator and the North Pole, MOOOOM? Puhleeze.

Santa lives on the North Pole. The equator doesn’t even make sense.

You see the logic I’m working with? Yeah. So I just laughed with her (which was NOT funny) and promised to show her on a globe since the Atlas in the car was zero help. She was frustrated by something she felt was a Very.Big.Deal but was somehow in the middle of a cornfield – with a dirt parking lot and no other visitors. Something didn’t compute for her.

So we did what any levelheaded road trippers do in situations like this: we danced.

Then found a Cave to tour 70 feet underground. With bats.

Totally normal.

We were almost to Uncle Justin’s house in St. Paul, MN by now and both ready to run around outside (not be in a seat belt). There’s a tradition in my family – at every state line we whoop and holler and make a joyful noise. This embarrasses Jessica normally but we did it together into Minnesota.

Then, finally, we arrived.

And she went swimming.

We all did … after an amazing home cooked meal, Jessica’s fav: Tacos. Mmmm.

Day 2 was epic. Which is kind of a theme on Road Trip 2012.