July 3: Departure Day

Sophie was so excited to leave on her trip she made her bed and came out of her room naked (I had warned her that I would be picking out her clothes during our vacation)

Looking out the back window on our journey.

Tom and Mike took turns driving throughout the day and night.

Getting a little lovin' from my Mr. Maxton

The headphones wouldn't adjust but he still wanted to wear them.

Sleeping buddy taking a late nap during the trip.

They're so sweet when they are sleeping...

Where in the world is Vikki Flandiego?

Mom's lack of geography knowledge is providing endless humor.  Sitting in the truck stop she says, "Well, I'd never been to Iowa; I can check that off my list now."  My response:  "Let's get a map first so you can find it then you can check it off." :)  All in good fun.

11pm local time and we're ready to switch out drivers after this gas stop and let Tom catch some zzzz's.  All my late night working/planning coupled with the excitement of the trip means that I'm not quite ready for bed yet but wanted to get a little writing in while we are sitting still.  

We crossed the Mississippi into Iowa and it seemed like all at once there were 5-6 different firework shows going on simultaneously.  Pretty darn neat.  Funny thing is that even though I couldn't hear the fireworks, I know how some sound so my mind provided its own sound effect.  Cool thing for me...I love fireworks.

It was a little warm for a lot of the drive but it's cooling off nicely now.  Really just enjoying the ride.  It's always entertaining when Mike gets behind the wheel...the old trucker in him comes out and I get to see a whole different side of the highway through that lens.

We are making good time and should be in the Badlands around 8am local time tomorrow.  It's supposed to be a warm one there (96) so it will be a nice respite to hit the area early and then head on up to Wall.  So nice to finally be on the road after all the planning.

Some other highlights that I didn't get pictures of (it's dark):  windmill silhouetted against the colorful dusk sky, crossing the Mississippi River, and Sophie coming up to watch the setting sun.  I did get a few pics of my sleeping Max at a rest area.  He crashed out early so we'll see what tomorrow holds (hopefully a nap!)

Good night and I'll be back tomorrow with some more posts.  (Probably just the facts, Jack - tough to be reflective when the little ones interrupt my train of thought...it's that whole only-child-needs-quiet-to-complete-a-thought thing.)

Day 1: On the Road!

Not sure how this is going to work to find time to blog and get pics up...it's easier to get the words on screen because I can blog with my iPad but to get pictures on I'll have to pull out the laptop and load the pics off of my camera card.

We'll start out with good intentions and try to get a blog up early.  For our first big trip together Tom and I went to Germany for a couple of weeks with Ingrid and it was on that trip that I started journaling our travels (though at that time it was just pen and paper.  I tried to keep up the trend on future trips...Dominican, cruise, Arizona - and managed to stay pretty consistent until we had kids.  Now the moments that I want to remember most are more likely to slip away so I'm really going to try and dedicate some time to writing each day.

I was reflecting last night (this morning technically, but who's counting hours?) when I was finishing up the itinerary for the trip just how lucky we are to not only take this trip but to be able to show our kids some wonderful stuff AND get to go with my parents.  For the parents, they've never been most of the places that we are going so it's a nice treat to be able to see someone experience the beauty and wonder of our country for the first time.  And for the kids, will they remember it?  Well, that depends what you mean.  When they are 40?  Probably not.  But when Max is 4, will he remember it?  You betcha.  And it's this joy for traveling, adventure, and discovery that we are hoping to instill at a young age so that our kids have a thirst to live life to its fullest.

Oh, and if I could put a picture up, it would be of Mom learning geography from the kids' toy map (in response to her question about going through the mountains of Tennessee and Kentucky...oy!)

Sleepy Heads

I’ll roll the publish date of this post forward.  Wanted to try and document where we laid our heads during our journey.  (Yes, I know this is of little interest to probably just about everyone else.)