Oh what fun it is to ride 16 hours in our truck

This was probably the most trying trip to date. We ventured out on New Years morning, all eager to get to the pool at the hotel. By the time we were to Bemidji (only 2 hrs away), we were guessing numbers and colors the other was thinking of. It was going to be a long ride. Duluth McDonald's had a play area, bonus! It also came with a dad and teenagers using the F word freely the first 5 minutes I sat down.
The roads weren't too bad, but we did drive pretty slow to Duluth. Over the bridge and into Wisconsin we go! Thanks go Grandpa J, kids watched many, many episodes of Top Cat, a cartoon from the 80's. Six showed the most interest, but Four didn't want to turn it off later in the day. We arrived to our hotel around the 8 o'clock hour. Roads were bad, worse than earlier. Visibility not good and lots of snow. We were happy to arrive and hopeful for better weather the next day.
Kids loved the pool and N ran to get us some Perkins! It was a nice night, but the kids were up until 11pm. They never stay up that late, not even during the summer.
We all slept until 8 and had breakfast downstairs. N took them swimming, I organized our stuff and we left by 9:30 am. We weren't really in a hurry because of the weather. We hoped it would clear up. We thought the visibility was bad the night before, it was far worse. We traveled 10 hours at 45 miles an hour for most of the day. In Musining, we played bumper cars with an older man and his truck. We were turning right on a round about and the ice took us right into the back of his truck. We were lucky, our only damage was our headlight. No one was hurt. We were barely moving when we turned. We traveled the rest of the way with one headlight.
Our journey continued with a slow pace. There was much relief when we made it to the bridge. Things were better the last 3 hours, some snow and low visibility, but much improved from earlier. What a day. It was great to finally arrive home. No snow here, just what's stuck to the back of our truck. It's like Christmas all over again for the kids, unpacking their new gifts. School tomorrow, but I think they'll go in late. Six took a nap at 5 o'clock. Really don't see an early bedtime happening, especially since it's already past their bedtime.