syracuse, Indiana

The children do not want to leave the room. We dropped into Ameri-Camp’s parking lot late last night and carried the sleeping children from the car to the trailer and settled in. The little road next to us was amazingly busy with Semi’s and RV’s and traffic most all night long. I was amazed. For such a tiny road, even on maps, it had more traffic than the large divided highway we’d left. We slept horribly, awfully, woken by thunder and lightening and rain so loud it sounded like hail. Finally, after the morning shift arrived at 5am, we slept until 9. AmeriCamp squared away all the items on our “to-do” list as the kids packed toys and clothes for a few nights away from home. I had expected to look for a little Mom and Pop motel, hoping to spend $20-30 a night, but we’ve apparently hit the resort area of Indiana. Syracuse is surrounded by many many lakes and Amish communities and Kerry (the warranty guy) at AmeriCamp kept pushing the Oakwood Resort/Inn on us. It sounded terribly expensive to me and I was very reluctant to accept his help in making a reservation but Jamie interrupted and said we’d take his help.

It only took us a couple hours to go over the list and pack up, drop the trailer and leave but we somehow managed to leave the trailer without packing absolutely everything from it in the van.
We drove around town a bit; very very many of the homes have docks and boats tied up behind them in place of backyards, found the Post Office (where mail and a phone await me) and the library (where the Jesse wanted to immediately head to) and after getting lost only once, found the Inn. I didn’t expect to be able to check in; I just wanted to see if they had a place for the kids to swim, but they were unexpectedly ready for us. I still have no idea who is paying for the room, AmeriCamp or us, but the kids are in absolute heaven. The bathtub is larger than any tub we’ve ever seen. The room is about twice as large as our trailer, there are TWO lazy-boy type chairs, a closet the size of a bedroom, a hallway and a bathroom the size of a kitchen. I guess they make everything bigger out here. A balcony surrounds one wall of the room and an interior atrium outside our room. We have a lovely view of a lake or one lake or some lakes; there seem to be many lakes here in the Syracuse area. The kids are astounded and so excited by the luxury of it all. The very first item on order was a bath. Both girls were swimming in the extra large tub; then Jamie and Pike shared a bath and now Jesse is bathing. As the kids got somewhat hungry they started making sandwiches from the fixings I bought and were fainting with happiness when I walked in with the lunch special. Three pieces of Amish fried chicken, garlic mashed potatoes and a salad. They are now sipping coffee and Jamie and I are cleaning up the leftovers.

I doubt they will want to leave the room; it is enormous (compared to our normal home), luxurious beyond belief and so relaxing. They keep exclaiming, “it couldn’t get ANY better than THIS!” and sigh and smile and giggle and laugh and appreciate. We’ve been thanked a million times and told that we’re the Best Mom/Dad ever and as their bellies fill, they are finally slowing down…