Friday, November 12, 2010

Final Thoughts

You're probably wondering why I've been home for a week and haven't posted the results of the trivia contest yet, right?  Well, we hit the ground running and this blog slipped to the back burner.  Today is my day to finish a few things, including announcing the winner.


But, before I do that, here are some facts about our trip.


•I put 4,438 miles on the truck in 32 days; final mileage on the odometer was 196,026.  I did let Brent drive us to and from Cocoa Beach and to Daytona Beach (I'm so nice!), but all the other miles were drive by yours truly!  My truck ran great - only had to replace a headlight and I averaged 16.1 mpg ('97 Suburban, remember?!?)  I love to drive!!!


•My kids have been to 15 states this year.


•We saw license plates from Washington D.C., Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, Manitoba, VanCouver, and 48 states.  We failed to see any vehicles with plates from North Dakota or Hawaii.  We saw three Hawaii plates this summer on our trip to Colorado so I'm bummed we didn't see another one.  Also, we did not see any plates from North Dakota on our summer trip, so maybe those people a. don't travel much outside their state, or b. they don't have license plates???


•Our favorite stops were Charleston, S.C. and the Mote Aquarium in Sarasota, FL.  Our most memorable stop was Cocoa Beach because the boys were stung by jellyfish.


•I asked 40 trivia questions.  The winner of the trivia contest is....... Team Nagelkerk from Michigan! They got 52 out of 54 possible points. The most interesting thing they learned was that manatees are closely related to elephants.  Congratulations!  Their prize is a collections of fun things we picked up at all our stops, and some candy (for John).


I'm already dreaming about our next road trip.  California?  Minnesota? Massachusetts?  Hawaii?  Europe?  We'll see!

Thursday, November 4, 2010

It's the End

Only one more day on the road and we will be home.  We left Orlando this morning and will finish our trip tomorrow.  We should be home soon after supper.

To help pass the time in the truck we listened to the Focus on the Family Readers' Theater production of The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis.  (We bought the complete set when we were in Colorado Springs this summer.)  These are not just books on tape; all seven books have been dramatized with character voices, sound effects, narration, and music.  Today we finished listening to The Last Battle, the final book in the series.  It was almost sad to have it come to an end.

So, the trivia contest must come to an end.  Here are the last questions.

37.  What drink was created by the University of Florida for its athletes?


38.  What name did C.S. Lewis' friends call him?


To be eligible for our awesome prize package, all questions must be answered via my gmail account by Saturday, November 6 at 12:00 noon.  Great job everyone!