The Facts

Favorite travel candy of our little trio: Hot Tamales!

Best food discovery: Simply Chex Mix - they left the cheese-powdered Chex and took out all that other crap. Combined with Ghardettos pumpernickel rye crisps, this would be the perfect food.

I haven't seen my lens cap since Chicago.

Jacob lost his entire toenail on Day 6.

We discovered that we are not city people.

I saw a Little Bear replica (something I had the God damnedest time finding on ebay) in a Walgreens just outside of Cleveland. I didn't even think to buy it as a backup until we were long gone.

The 'ice cream cake on a stick' in Chicago was not worth the seven tickets. It was made of wax.

Save for the glass bottles I was able to recycle at a Wisconsin rest area, we brought home every single recyclable material we went through on the trip. There was a fantastic recycling center in a parking lot in Colorado Springs, but each and every bin was already full to the brim.

The best thing I did in Wyoming was put my tiny orange pin on a map in the coolest little coffee shop.

Jacob got hot pink water shoes with sparkles before our trip. I never got to write about it, but I did have my title ready: "I talk the talk, but can I walk the walk?" He wore them everyday and Zach never complained once. Also, in Montana Zach suggested a we buy a shirt for Jacob and the one he (Zach) liked was purple. He did this unflinchingly so, and I don't think I've ever been prouder.

There were a couple days there in the middle of our trip where I broke through Jacob's psychological barrier and tapped into his split personality. I discovered if I called him by the name of another (made-up) boy, 'Pillow' (it was the first thing in his view when I asked him his name), that I could do almost anything I wanted with him (hug, kiss, talk to, but not take a picture).

Out of the blue one day Jacob got a his "sh" sound and "ch" sound. The whole trip we were amazed to hear all the words that were affected by this speech change.

Pretty much every place in Wyoming had the one or more of the following it its name: Buffalo, Native, Spur, Antelope, Indian.

We went a whole week without seeing one pizza place!