Day Seventeen: We are in Forrest City, Arkansas

We packed up lots of our stuff late last night and just had to do the last minute packing this morning, and then it was time to hit the road. We really don't like saying good-bye ... it's a hard thing to do with grandchildren! Sabrina's family has tentative plans to come see us during Christmas break, so we just talked about when they would be coming to Michigan instead of concentrating on leaving everyone today. We were able to eat breakfast with and kiss the grandchildren before we left town just before 8:00 this morning.

I didn't take many pictures while on the road today. So this is just going to be a short narrative of our day. The skies were gray and the clouds heavy all throughout our morning drive, but we didn't actually encounter rain until just after lunch, about 140 miles short of Texarkansas. And then it rained pretty much the rest of our drive ... and much of it was a hard, pouring kind of rain that makes driving even more tedious.

We listened to discs seven and eight of our novel and enjoyed that very much. We also saw what we think might have been a bobcat cross the road just after we passed through Hope, Arkansas. We're not sure because it was too far ahead of us, but it walked just like a cat and had the tail of a cat, but I've never seen a cat that large and sleek before!

Our drive was completely unremarkable, and we are thankful to have arrived safely in Forrest City which is about 50 miles west of Memphis. We plan to get a very early start tomorrow morning and drive right on through to ... Belmont!

What was foremost on our minds throughout today was the birth of our 10th grandbaby. Jeremiah Cornelius was born to Adam and Emily at 12:32 a.m. this morning. He weighed six pounds nine ounces and measured 20 inches. Emily was in labor all day long and part of the prior night, so we were really happy and relieved to hear this good news this morning. Last night I didn't sleep real well and dreamed they had the baby and named him Constantine Powers and were going to call him "Connie"! Yikes. Dreams can be crazy. Adam has posted a few beautiful pictures of mom and baby over on their blog. Grandpa Jones and I are going to go home and rest up, and then see when Adam and Emily would like us to come and see this little cutie. We'll take a ton of pictures when we go to Minneapolis and we'll be sure to post them.