Days 13-14: Baltimore

Today is the official 2 week mark of our trip. One third of the way through. At this point in all vacations past if we aren't already home, we are definitely on the way. I don't think we've ever been gone longer than 14 days. This year, we still have 4 weeks and 1 day left. And no one is ready to go home yet. No one is even thinking of it. We're all very happy and having an insanely good time. I wondered how it would feel this far in. I've always said that I think I could travel indefinitely, that I don't need a home base. This is a good little test of that theory. So far so good. Anyway...

Yesterday and today are family days in Baltimore. Mike's family specifically, though after all this time together, certainly my family too. So let's clarify that as Mike's blood family, my extended family.  Yesterday we had a nice leisurely morning. The boys ran some errands with Grandpa while Grammy had to work a little bit. When everyone was home we headed to the inner harbor, just a short distance away.  Had lunch on the patio at one of the restaurants their and then spent a couple of hours touring two of the ships docked there - a submarine (Torsk) and a 19th century sloop (Constellation). Both boats were very interesting to tour. Hard to imagine living on one for months at sea though.

Had dinner at a really nice local spot, great food.

Today we are hanging out with Mike's brothers and their families. They aren't here yet, but it promises to be quite hectic and fun when they do get here so I'm posting this now. There will be 6 of the 7 grandkids on this side of the family here. One is spending time with other family in Florida. We saw some of these cousins back in April when they visited us in Texas for a week, the others we haven't seen in 3 years. Should be a fun afternoon.

Got quite hot here. We definitely left the cool weather in Shenandoah. A heat wave hit yesterday. All the fun of Texas heat plus east coast humidity. For laughs yesterday I pulled up the weather in Texas to compare to here. It was 92 here with a heat index of 97, 93 in Austin with a heat index of 93. And it's an hour later here.

And now I've got to sort out the last of the laundry. We should be good to go for another week.

Days 9-12: Charlottesville to Shenandoah to Gainesville to Baltimore

Seems like this should be a long post, but it won't be. Just a little bit of catching up to do. There was no cell service or wifi available in Shenandoah National Park and I just now got access to wifi here in Baltimore so I can update a bit.

We started off Day 9 in Charlottesville touring Monticello, Thomas Jefferson's home. It's a beautiful property. Jefferson was an incredibly interesting man. A lot has changed since I was there last, new visitor center and museum, some new displays around the grounds. All very well done, worth visiting if you are in Charlottesville.

Next we hit a grocery store and headed for the mountains. Shenandoah is such a special place for me, and it always will be.  That excitement seems to have worn off on the boys, they were as happy and at peace there as I was. Lots of great hiking around the park, tons of animal sightings including a couple of bears, tons of dear, about 10 gazillion chipmunks, even peregrine falcons feeding on some quail on a clifftop.

Monday night we had a good old fashioned weenie roast over the campfire, ate s'mores, watched the stars come up. We even had an opportunity for Alex to set up his telescope and watch the nearly full moon for a bit. It was quite chilly though.  We did not expect to be cold here in Virginia.

Tuesday was our day of hiking. We started off with a ranger program in the morning, so ended up hitting the trails a little later. By dinner time it was starting to mist a little. Not a happy thing since our Smoky Mountain camping got derailed due to weather. Mike and I walked to the ranger station and checked the weather, no rain was forecast for Tuesday, but it was forecast for early Wednesday morning and all throughout the day Wednesday. We finished dinner, I decided it was going to be very cold again for sleeping so I went to the camp store and bought a couple more blankets. By the time I got back it's starting to rain lightly and a heavy fog is rolling in. We decided to pack up everything but the tents and sleeping pads/blankets so that it wouldn't get anymore wet than it already was. Mike and Alex went to another evening ranger program, Ben and I packed the car. By the time we found each other the fog was so thick you couldn't see more than a couple steps in front of you, it was raining, and cold. We settled in for a long, cold, wet night that wasn't a lot of fun. Somewhere in the middle of the night though, the wind kicked up, quite fiercely actually. That wind turned out to be a good thing, even though it was cold it dried out the wet tents.

Wednesday morning we woke early, we were all cold, had all slept badly. I made breakfast, we checked the weather, and they pushed the rain chances off until later in the day. We decided to take advantage of the windy morning and pulled all of the wet gear out of the car from the night before. After a bit of discussion and the fact that it looked like rain was definitely in the forecast for Wednesday afternoon/evening we decided to find a room at the lodge instead of camping the last night. We packed up our now dry gear and set off. Turns out to have been a good decision, about an hour or so after we broke camp a really heavy downpour that lasted for a good 20-30 minutes came through and would have soaked everything, again. We did get one more shower Wednesday night, right about the time we would have been settling into the tents for the night. Aside from that brief bit of rain though, Wednesday turned out to be a gorgeous day. The boys finished their junior ranger books they started 5 years ago and we did some more hiking. Had a nice restful evening in the lodge.

Thursday morning broke clear and cool and gorgeous. The most beautiful mountain morning you can imagine. I woke before everyone else and took advantage of my time to enjoy a few minutes of solitude in one of my favorite places. It really was heart rending to leave the park yesterday. All other places/times on this trip I have been ready to move on. It was almost more than I could bare to leave my spot yesterday.

But, we had plans to meet some friends in Gainesville on route to Baltimore and Mike's family. We met the Cohen's when Ben was in 3rd grade, they gave us Pepper when they moved back here to VA. Ben and Lily have a very special bond and Ben was beyond excited to spend the day with Lily. So we went to their house, had lunch, caught up on the past year apart and then headed to the Udvar-Hazy Museum, that very magical place where they house the very best of the toys for the Air & Space Museum. Things like an SR-71 Blackbird, Concorde, the Discovery Orbiter. Just amazing. The space shuttle had me in complete awe. To know where it's been and to see it up close is almost incomprehensible. Very cool. After a hard goodbye with very special people we sat in crappy northern VA traffic and headed to Baltimore.

And here we sit, Friday morning. It's good to be with family, been a very long time since we've seen each other.  Their new house is lovely, the boys are thrilled at having time with Grammy & Grandpa, we are all very relaxed and happy here. We will spend the day exploring Baltimore and tomorrow we will catch up with Mike's brother's and their families. The boys can't wait for some cousin time!

Day 8: Gatlinburg to Charlottesville, VA

Today's journey led us back into Virginia. We're not quite back to familiar ground yet, but close. The scenery is certainly familiar. Not much to report about the day, it was mostly driving. It's a pretty long haul from the Smoky Mountains to our spot in Shenandoah National Park. I'm very glad that Mike planned for this stop in Charlottesville. While I would love to spend as much time as possible in one of my favorite places, setting up camp and all that stuff after an 8 hour drive would not have been ideal. I'll be spoiled and take a nice cozy bed for a night before 3 on a 2" sleeping pad.

We made an unplanned stop in Natural Bridge today. I lived here for 25 years, Mike for 15 and neither of us had ever been there before. It's a state park now, apparently that just happened in Sept. 2016. The bridge is beautiful, Thomas Jefferson bought the property. It was surveyed by his father.  young George Washington fit into the story somewhere that my brain is failing to remember. Anyway, George climbed about 25 feet up the one wall and carved his initials into it - they are still there. The bridge is very beautiful, one of those really cool gifts of mother nature. There's a really easy 9/10 of a mile hike to a little waterfall. It was a nice place for lunch, a nice break in the drive.

Once we got to Charlottesville we walked around a very tiny part of the UVA campus, visited Edgar Allen Poe's dorm room, a few other pretty spots. Then it was onto the little outdoor mall for dinner. A bit humid tonight, there were storms off and on all day today, we drove through a couple. The humidity is lingering. There were a fair number of homeless people hanging around the mall, I don't recall that from visits past. But, the last time I was here was 20+ years ago.

We're headed to Shenandoah tomorrow. Don't know the likely-hood of being able to update this for the next few days. I know there won't be wifi, cell service will be spotty at best and blogger is terrible on the phone. So, if nothing else, we'll touch base again on Thursday!

Day 7: Great Smoky Mountains National Park

So today officially marks the end of our first week. We've definitely covered a lot of ground and had some great adventures. Everyone is looking forward to continuing on. It is somewhat sad that a week is ALREADY gone. In some ways it feels like we just left home yesterday, in other ways it feels as though we have been gone for months. Anyway...

It was a beautiful day for hiking in the mountains. This park is huge and it just so happens to be the most visited of all the parks/monuments/sites/etc. in the national park system. So yeah, there were LOTS of people here. There also happens to be over 800 miles of hiking trails.  Only Yellowstone and I think Yosemite have more trails. There are definitely popular hikes that are crowded, but there are lots and lots of places to go where it is quiet. Even the popular hikes have so many off shoots that the parking lot may be crammed full with cars stacked up on the road for half a mile either side of the parking lot on both sides of the road, yet you pass comparably few people on the actual trail. They all just sort of disappear into the woods. That is really nice.

With the exception of a short, flat little nature trail everything else we hiked went up. Lots and lots and lots of up. The road winds through the valleys, often following the water. That means that all of the hikes have to start off going up. That's not so bad, by the time you get to your destination you've done the hard part and the return trip is relaxing and easy and just makes you ready to head up to the next one.

Lots of variety in the trees in the park depending on the elevation.  We went up Clingman's Dome this morning and it was all fir trees. And the temperature was about 60 degrees and breezy. That felt great as we had a steep half mile hike up to the top. There was a bit of fog at the top this morning so we only had sporadic views. Still beautiful though. Even as we cruised back down and stopped at various places for other hikes, the temperature didn't get out of the 60s until we hit the visitor center at 4.

In short, it was a perfect day for hiking.

I should take a minute to talk about the junior ranger badges, I mentioned it before. I'm just mentioning it again to remind me to dedicate time to it later. This post has gone on long enough for now.

Just one last note - we ended up leaving the park a bit earlier than intended, it started raining again.  Looked like we were going to get a pretty nasty storm, but it ended up fizzling by the time we got back to the hotel. We opted to just call it a day and get our laundry done before heading out to dinner. I think that was a good plan. Looks like Charlottesville is going to be nice tomorrow so we can devote our time there to playing tourists instead of having to wait around for laundry as we originally intended.

Would have been nice to get the full 2 1/2 days here that we had originally planned, but all things considered, it worked out well. We didn't have to get rained on 3 days in a row in a tent, we are caught up on laundry, will be well rested for the long drive tomorrow and ready to camp in Shenandoah on Monday.

Day 6: Chattanooga & Great Smoky Mountainsomorr

It was an absolutely gorgeous morning in Chattanooga. On our way out of town we stopped off to see the famous Chattanooga choo choo. The train ran from Cincinnati to Chattanooga, a vital supply line for the town. The old train depot is now a hotel and center for a few other businesses. Some of the old train cars serve as hotel rooms. The grounds are quite pretty, the train fun to look at.

On our way out of town we stopped at the Chickamauga & Chattanooga National Military Park. This park relives the history of the civil war battle that took place there. Interestingly enough, this park was created before the national park service. About 30 years after the civil war those that fought there gathered together. They erected thousands of monuments that remembered the ones who fought in the battle, battle strategies, those that died, pretty much everything about the battle. It's an interesting park to drive/walk through. Once the park service was founded this became a National Military Park.

Then it was on to Gatlinburg, and here is where we are now. Not a bad drive, though traffic got bad once we got to Gatlinburg. I did not realize that this park is the most visited of all the national parks. Gatlinburg is full of all the usual tourist trap stuff, and crazy amounts of people, like beach boardwalk in the summer crazy. But the park is big and the weather forecast isn't as bad tomorrow as we originally thought it might be. Not camping again tonight was probably the right call. Got some pretty good rain showers from about 5:30-8, might be a few more overnight. Would have been another damp night.

We did get one hike in to Laurel Falls today. It was a very pretty waterfall. We saw our first bear on the way down from the falls. A little cub was climbing around a tree. I'm guessing mama bear wasn't far off.

And that brings us to now. We'll see what the weather does tomorrow, but i think everyone is looking forward to some hiking and mountain time.

If you read this, and Mike's blog, I'm sure you've noticed some discrepancies. Go with whatever Mike says, it's a sure bet he's right and I'm not.

Day 5: Chattanooga, TN

Turns out it was the right call cancelling our camping reservations in the Smokies. We drove through some pretty intense rain on route to Chattanooga this morning from Huntsville. That same rain made it's way up into the Great Smoky Mountains. In fact, when I checked the weather around 8 this evening it was still raining in the mountains.  Camping would have been a whole lot less than ideal. Tomorrow's forecast isn't much better, clear in the morning but rain throughout the day. So. Here we are in Chattanooga.

We headed straight for the aquarium today because it was raining pretty good when we got here. I had no idea what to expect from the aquarium, I had not researched it at all. But, Mike said it was a go, so we went. I really didn't have high hopes. The aquarium was really very very nice. It's divided into two halves, one focusing on river life and one on ocean life. Two separate buildings. The buildings are tall and don't look big from the outside. They housed so many exhibits though, and all were very well done. We've been to a whole lot of aquariums over the years, this one was great.

We explored the river life half of the aquarium first. By the time we were done the rain had stopped (although that turned out to be a temporary lull) so we walked across the way to a little spot for lunch.  More rain showers came during lunch, but it finally seemed to all clear off by 3. After lunch we took advantage of the breaks in the rain and walked around Chattanooga by the river for a bit. It's quite beautiful, some interesting history displays about the iron foundries in the 1800s. Pretty terraced hills with flowers, a very large art museum which we didn't have a chance to visit. Gave the kiddos some ice cream and then headed for the ocean half of the aquarium.

There's a waterfall near here called Ruby Falls. Again, didn't know much about it but thought it might be worth checking out. We drove up the hills to it, turns out it was in the kitschy tourist trap area and it costs a ridiculous amount to see, so we scrapped that and checked into the hotel.  It was just the odd hour that was too early for dinner but too short to go explore some of the other things we wanted to do. So we swam in the hotel pool. That was refreshing, kids loved it. Found some dinner, walked around a bit enjoying the now absolutely gorgeous weather. The heat and steam from all the rain has blown off and it's quite cool and beautiful out. Mike and I would have walked around more but at least one of the kids was visibly tired and the extreme amount of bickering back at the room was a sure sign they are both pretty exhausted. So, that ends day 5.

For fun... we hit the first 1000 miles on our drive over here today, and we have officially been through 6 states now (Texas, Arkansas, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia). I was very glad to have brown car today and not a rental. We gave the car a lot of love before we left to make sure she could get us around.  She did well in the weather today.  We have a 3+ hour drive to Gatlinburg tomorrow. Hopefully the weather will be a bit better than today. Just 5 days in, and Texas feels like a lifetime ago, and thousands (well just over one thousand anyway) of miles away.

Day 4: Huntsville, Alabama

Today was largely for our rocket boy, though we all enjoyed it. Wasn't a terribly long drive from Memphis to Huntsville, just shy of 4 hours. We had a couple of little rain showers along the way. Mostly we were just on
a little two lane highway winding through the country side of far north Mississippi and Alabama. It was pretty and green and pretty quiet. 

I love where we live in Texas. Austin is a great city, lots of things to my liking. But being somewhere with more green and trees and a road that goes up and down some hills a little makes me miss some parts of Virginia.  I have no desire to move back there, but there are times when I miss the scenery.  So, on this trip, as the majority of it will be in the scenery that I love, I will soak it all in. My favorite roads are those that pass under a tunnel of trees. I love looking up and seeing the trees meet over the roadway with the light filtering down through it. We passed through one of those this evening.

The main goal for the day was the Space & Rocket center. It's kind of hard to miss as the Saturn V rocket on the grounds is standing erect and all 36 stories of it are visible from the highway. The museum had some really interesting exhibits. Rocket Park and the discovery center dedicated to the Saturn V rocket were certainly the highlights. We all learned a bit, could have spent many more hours there reading every little placard.

Perhaps the most well known part of this center is Space Camp. Kids from 9-18 can spend a week here during the summer prepping for their hopeful future as astronauts. The camps are divided out by age and become more intense in the older groups. The camp geared towards the 15-18 year olds will even qualify for a college credit. Bet you can't guess who wants to go to Space Camp. I would love nothing more than to send him. Who knows what the future holds.

We spent a small bit of the evening exploring historic downtown Huntsville. It's very pretty, the historic parts remind me somewhat of Fredericksburg, VA, or Fort Collins in Colorado. Smaller than both of those cities though. Lots of trees and green, historic buildings, corner cafes and restaurants. There was a very pretty park to the one side of town, lots of steps down with a cascading waterfall and a little river full of ducks. There was one family of ducks, mama and 10 babies. Ten little ducklings is probably one of the cutest things ever to watch. One little duckling got kind of far away from mom and started swimming in circles, crying. Obviously he was in distress. But, he persevered and eventually found his way back to mama. Anyway, it was nice to walk around down here.

We capped off the evening with some fine German food, and now we are getting ready for the next adventure.

Day 3 - Memphis

It's a bit late, so this one is going to be short. Had another great day. We managed to see quite a few Memphis highlights, all the while avoiding the big one. We saw the Lorraine Motel (sight of the MLK assassination), Sun Studio (famous recording studio - Elvis recorded his first record here, along with many other very famous musicians), a tour of the Mississippi River via a paddle wheel boat, and the duck walk at the Peabody. The Civil Rights Museum was closed, but at least we had an opportunity to view the motel and catch the outside exhibit a bit. Ben wanted to ride the trolley, so we did. Also snagged a bus ride from Sun Studio back to Main Street. Yay for public transportation! Between that and our little legs we were able to get a break from the car.

To cap it all off we had some of that famous Memphis bbq at Rendezvous, known for their pork ribs.

We've been keeping tabs on the weather, there's a rather large system that's going to affect our plans in a few days. We had planned on camping in the Great Smoky Mountains. We cancelled that reservation tonight as it looks like a near 100% chance of rain and storms for the bulk of the time we would be camping. That didn't sound like a lot of fun for any of us. So, after exhaustive searching and trying to come up with an alternate plan that wouldn't increase our driving time unreasonably we opted for a day in Chattanooga and a hotel in Gatlinburg. If the weather changes, we'll still be able to go the park and enjoy the mountains, just no camping at this point. If we get the rain that is forecast we'll at least have a dry place to hang out for a couple of days. 

That's the first deviation from the plan, and it's alright. We'll make anything work.

Day 2: Hot Springs, Arkansas to Memphis, Tennessee

Let's see if I can string together a bit more of a coherent post than last night. Blogger stinks on a mobile device! Honestly, for the best scoop, you probably ought to go check out Mike's blog. He's so detail oriented, and his memory is so much better than mine. Anyway...

Hot Springs. Pretty cool little place. The area is fed by all of these lovely little thermal springs. The water bubbling up out of the earth is a toasty 143 degrees or so when it exits the earth. Thanks to the Junior Ranger program (more on that in a bit)... we learned that the springs are fed by rain water high in the mountains that follows all these lovely little cracks and crevices deep into the earth where it gets all nice and toasty warm, then it follows more cracks and crevices back to the surface. The water is not warmed by volcanic activity so it doesn't have sulfur in it which means no rotten egg smell. It tastes lovely, though hot. You can fill bottles from taps along bathhouse row.  The waters are known for their medicinal properties.

The 8 bathhouses that are left make up bath house row. These were all build in the late 1800's - early 1900s. Only one still operates as a barthhouse, which is basically a luxury spa. And no, we did not get a chance to take a spring fed bath. Maybe next time.  The other 7 are businesses of various sorts, a couple of them are National Park Service buildings. The Fordyce bathhouse serves as a museum and has been restored to it's glory days. It's quite interesting to go through, some of the luxury treatments offered seem a bit medieval - the electric bath in particular. The Superior Bathhouse has been turned into a little brewery restaurant touting themselves as the only place in the world that brews their own beer and root beer with the natural thermal hot spring waters. Both the beer and root beer were very good. The food was good too.

We also took a nice little hike up the mountain to the lookout tower. The view from the top of the tower was lovely. The Ouachita mountains were off in the distance, the town of Hot Springs down below us. The hike was a very steep 1/2 mile up. It was extremely humid and I was glad we chose to do the hike early in the day. We saw some deer, a chipmunk. I was reminded of how nice it is to hike outside of central Texas where the trees offer some shade and even in the extreme humidity it is quite tolerable and pleasant.

After Hot Springs we trekked on over to Little Rock. It's kind of a thing for me to go visit state capitols when the opportunities arise. The Little Rock building was very beautiful. Tons of marble, very big. There were large bronze doors at the main entrances. When we got there I noticed a man standing on a ladder doing something to one of the doors. It turns out that in order to maintain the luster intended by the original door sculptor, the doors are polished inside and out by hand every week. The doors are 10 feet tall. That's a lot of hand polishing.

We got our first taste of real rain in Little Rock. We cut the sight seeing short because of a torrential downpour. Enough rain that it warranted sitting in a parking lot for about 15-20 minutes to let the storm pass. It was the kind of rain that would have kept me off the road anywhere, not just because I was in unfamiliar territory.  In fact, all I really thought was "huh, we're getting a Texas sized storm in little Arkansas.".

Then it was on to Memphis. Just a taste of Memphis tonight. We found a nice little place for dinner - Automatic Slims, then walked over to Beale street. Beale street is somewhere between Austin's 6th street and New Orlean's Bourbon street. Just fun to say, yeah, I've been there. We've got a little history planned for tomorrow. Graceland may or may not be on our list of stops. I think we'd all like to check out the Mississippi River a bit. It's big :-)

That's day 2. Pictures will surface eventually. For now, enjoy the words.

Austin to Dallas to Hot Springs, Arkansas

I think Mike is sitting by the window writing his own blog post for the day. Probably postingbon Facebook too. How much of my thoughts do I put here, how much do I save for my journal? Do I date read Mike’s blog now or wait until the end of the trip and revisit everything from his perspective?

Anyway... day 1!! It’s still hard to believe that this trip is actually really finally underway. It was a pretty great start to the trip. Dealey Plaza does not fail to inspire awe. It’s quite something to walk through such a well known part of American history. The museum was incredibly fascinating. We had a lovely lunch at a little local place s few blocks away then hit the road on to Arkansas.

And that is where we sit now. Hot Springs is a cute little place. The old bath houses are pretty to look at. Only one is still doperating as a bath house.we walked around a little tonight, will do some hiking and exploring tomorrow. The water from the Springs is on average 134 degrees, quite toasty coming out of the earth. I imagine the baths would feel quite lovely.

I was going to add a few pictures, but blogger doesn’t work great on the phone. Will have to add photos later.

Aaaaaand we're off... Almost...

The hope is that in less than 12 hours we'll be on our way. First stop is Dealy Plaza in Dallas. The boys and I visited this historic landmark last summer on our whirlwind eclipse trip. Pretty amazing bit of history to experience. I'm glad we'll have a chance to go with Mike. Our final destination tomorrow night is Hot Springs, Arkansas. Fingers crossed for quiet roads and good weather.

And packing the car? Yeah, it all fits, and yes, I can still see out the back window. Thanks, Mom, for the gift of car packing. I learned from the best.

As for the rest of the night... Well, I've got a few little odds and ends to pack up. I can't imagine I'll sleep much. Seems like a good time to put on a movie and chill.

One last note, the refrigerator is officially empty and I only had to give away 3 limes! We did a great job of emptying it out this week. Yay for creative cooking, and eating lots and lots of salads.

Happy Father's Day Mike. I hope that you enjoy this adventure more than you dreamed possible. I love you.

Mike's Take on Things

For the fun of it, we've each got a separate blog for this trip. Clearly, this is mine.  I started to play around with a new/different thing, decided it wasn't worth it. This one will suffice. I'm guessing I won't update it as frequently as Mike updates his. At any rate, it should be amusing to see our different takes on the same thing. Like the house we drew in elementary school art. About the only thing my sister and I saw that was the same was the color. We both drew a yellow house. Other than that, you'd never know it was the same (ignoring the fact that one was drawn by a first grader and the other a much more artistically advanced third grader). Mike and I compliment each other so very well and part of that is our different perspectives. It will be fun to see how the next 6 weeks play out. Without further ado, here is a link to Mike's blog...

http://mikegilsbach.onuniverse.com/

I will point out that I'm a little more optimistic about our packing prospects. Today was the 4th test pack of the car. Mike's a bit skeptical it will all fit. I think it will. We'll just leave one or both of the kids behind if we're short on room. Double bonus, said kid(s) can take care of the dogs. All kidding aside, Saturday as the official packing day ought to be interesting. Anyone want to place bets on whether we scrape by without having to get a cargo carrier for Brown Car?

The Big Adventure

We're about to head out for "The Big Adventure." Six weeks, probably around 7000 miles, at least 19 states and 2 Canadian provinces. From ATX, up through Maine, into Canada, and back again. All in our faithful little Brown Car. Seems like a good way to waste away some summer days if you ask me.

This adventure really has already started, it started way back in November. Mike came home from work one day and asked me what I thought of taking a road trip - a really big road trip. And it went from there. The sabbatical request was submitted, it took forever to get approved, we planned anyway. Fingers crossed that the stars would align and summer would be spent together, all 4 of us. Hours of planning have gone into the route, accommodations, activities, etc.. More hours have been spent arranging a small army of very kind and generous people to care for the pups, fishes, plants, house, everything that we are leaving behind for 6 weeks. We have test-packed the car on 3 separate occasions already, one more test pack will happen in the next day or so. We've arranged time to visit family and friends, lots of plans of camping and being disconnected from everything but each other. We've slogged through another school year, trials at work, family members with health concerns. The trip has never been a sure thing. Maybe it is now, we'll know for sure when we actually pull out of the driveway. How many times during the last 6 months did I wonder if we were meant to go on this trip? Things would happen that would make it seem as if the universe was trying to tell us no, stay home, do something else. Then suddenly everything would resolve and fall into place and quite the opposite would be true. That is still happening, even today. The pull for us to do this seems so much stronger than the pull for us not to.

We have maps, and a thick folder of reservation confirmations and all other important things, a 3 page itinerary complete with stops for doing laundry and getting groceries. We have 80 pounds of dog food and 7 pounds of dog treats, extra fish food and filters. We have packing lists and chore lists. We have extra shoes and rain gear. We have so much excitement, and some of us have so many nerves and some anxiety. I worry about the pups, I'll miss them like crazy. Will they think I've abandoned them? Will they be mad at me for leaving them? Will they forgive me? Will they be good for all of their caregivers? More than that, did we bite off more than we can chew with this one? Only time will tell.

I hope that the dogs will be fine, that the fish will be fine, that the house will be fine. I hope that Mike comes home refreshed and ready to start work anew. I hope that the boys will remember this as one of the best summers ever, that they will be ready to tackle another school year. I hope that we have the adventure of a lifetime.

We're still here...

What fun is a blog that only gets updated once every 2 years???!!! Eh, since no one reads this anyway, it's not really that important. This has always been for me.  The thought of keeping a journal is always appealing, and I write in that imaginary journal all the time, many times a day in fact. That doesn't even do me any good. It's a nice idea to think that I will remember all the things I want to remember. Reality is I'm hard pressed to remember what I had for dinner last night.

Anyway, it seems an opportune time to revisit the blog, journaling, etc. It's summer once again and that means vacation time. There's a big one in store this year. But that's for another post. For now, we're still here...