the once a decade vacation

Every decade or so I like to take a vacation.  My husband and I own our own business so it is very hard to get away.  His family also lives several hours away, so when we get time to go somewhere...that's usually where we go.  Last week our son, JP, graduated from basic training and infantry training at Ft. Benning, Georgia.  We made the trek with our two youngest daughters, M, who is 17 and S who is 8.  We traveled about 5 hours a day for three days to get to Georgia and then took the trip home in two.  First stop was St. Louis.  Went to the arch of course, but also to the Science Center.  Which if you have little kids (4-13) they will love this place.  It is free too!  It's all hands on, even has a guy on site cleaning dinosaur bones.  Second stop was the Shiloh Battlefield.  I love history, so does my 8 year old.   We loved looking around.  It is however, visually just a hayfield, so if you don't have a good imagination and a knowledge of the battle, just skip it.  Third on the trip was Atlanta.  Atlanta people are mean drivers!!!  Anyway, we went to the aquarium which was amazing!  It was probably the best part of the trip.  Truly amazing!  We then hit rush hour traffic, which my husband never truly recovered from.  Saw Stone Mountain.  Impressive.  Then we did Ft Benning and the Infantry museum for a couple of days.  Saw the older two daughters, K & C, along with C's boyfriend and M our daughter who lives in CA and we haven't seen in about 5 years.  She has grown up so much as has JP, who matured about 10 years while in the army.  On the way back we did Elvis day.  We hit Tupelo and then Memphis.  That's a good idea, btw.  Explains a lot.  Still exhausted though we've been back three days.  Just caught up at work but now have to leave early to take S to the cardiologist which will then get me behind again.  Oh, well, it was all worth it.