Warm-up day

Yesterday was a warm-up driving day.  The kids had a swim meet in the morning, and then we headed out for a 7.5 hour drive to Knoxville, TN.  The kids were excited to start off on our adventure.  See the picture below of them buckled up, ready to go.

Within 2 hours, Mia sighed, “Ah man, this is a long trip” and Andrew was ready for a bathroom break.  We were able to hold him off for another hour until we stopped to fill up our gas tank.

The kids would love to eat fast food for every meal, but we’ll try to avoid that as much as possible.  For the first day, we brought sandwiches for lunch and a spinach tortellini salad for dinner.  The kids enjoyed it, as you can see.

We made good time and arrived around 7:30.  The kids were pretty good .  There were a few close calls, but each earned their dollar for the day.  We got settled and the kids got to expend some energy in the pool before we went to bed.  Overall, a great start to our vacation!

Daddy, where did your hair go?

When Mia woke up on Saturday morning and saw me for the first time, she asked, “Daddy, where did your hair go?” 

Since I won’t be in the office for a month, I decided to try an experiment.  So the night before our trip, Emily reluctantly “shaved” my head.  I’m trying some new hairstyles during the break to help solve a conundrum: when I have my mid-life crisis and buy a motorcycle, how will I avoid helmet hair?  Here’s a picture of my new do and our car before the adventure.  You’ll notice our roof-top carrier on top of the car.  It is a new acquisition and was instrumental in helping us fit all of our camping gear, etc. in the car.

 I realized this morning that I forgot my shaver, so I may be experimenting with some new facial hair, too.   

The Beginning...

What's this sabbatical thing?

The firm I work for has offered particular milestones for each advancement within the firm.  When promoted to director I was awarded with a paid sabbatical, which equates to a month off work.  We had a hard time figuring out what we could do to make it a memorable trip.  We had already planned to be in Newport Beach, CA for Emily's family reunion.  We thought of various alternatives around the reunion and eventually came up with our current plan.

Why a blog?

During a client lunch my upcoming sabbatical became a topic of conversation.  As we were leaving the restaurant the client told me he had one request.  "We want to hear about your trip.  You need to keep us updated on your trip and post pictures."  I had never thought of posting our trip for all to see.  However, we thought this would be a good way of documenting our trip and be the backbone of a book we'll have made to preserve our trip for posterity.  We feel fine sharing this with friends and if you're interested you're welcome to follow along.

Our plan.

Some have called us crazy, but here is our plan.  After the kids' swim meet this Saturday, we'll begin our drive to California.  We're driving straight to CA only stopping to sleep so we can make it to the family reunion on time.  We'll stay at Newport Beach, CA for a week.  We'll then spend some additional time with Emily's sister and parents.  After the family visits we'll begin our drive home.  Here are the places we'll stop, in order, on our way home:

Crater Lake National Park
Mount St. Helens
Mount Rainier National Park
Seattle, WA
Olympic National Park
Banff National Park
Glacier National Park
Yellowstone National Park
Mount Rushmore
Badlands National Park
Chicago, IL
Home

Below is a screen shot of the planned route.  It's almost 8,000 miles and 130 hours driving.  Yes we're planning on getting an oil change at some point during our adventure.

You'll notice we're visiting quite a few national parks.  We purchased the annual national park pass and will try and maximize its use. Our trip will be like a cruise on land, except we won't be sleeping while someone drives our car, we won't have unlimited food at every meal, and we won't have people to clean our room every day.  But other than those things, it will be just like a cruise.  We'll drive a day and then visit for a day or two and then go to the next destination.  I've never been to any of these locations and Emily has been to a couple.  We're looking forward to this family adventure.

We're not strangers to long road trips, but to help increase our chances for success we have bribed our kids.  The rule is if they don't fight during the day they each get a dollar.  We'll see how that goes and keep you updated on their progress.

We are not professional bloggers and don't claim to be.  If people are following along you'll have to forgive our amateur blogging skills.  We also won't have a lot of time to worry about grammar so English majors may be offended at times and we apologize.

Internet Safety

For any internet stalkers, our house will be occupied by a good friend the entire time we're gone.  This leaves you little chance to break into our house.  Plus, you'd soon realize that there is nothing valuable to steal.  We're saving you the trouble.

To maintain some privacy we're not using our last name on any post or pictures.

We're looking forward to our adventure and we will try and keep you updated.