D is for Driving Across Countries!

Count-down 43 days until departure for Alaskan Adventure!

4322 miles to drive.

82 hours driving time.

That’s like driving from our house in Northern Ohio to Bogota, Columbia; or from Inverness, Scotland to the middle of Russia (Novosibirisk); or from Lisbon, Portugal to somewhere in the middle of Iran (Shahreza to be more precise). You get the idea. That’s a lot of road.

Our approximate route

Of course we won’t actually be driving across the entire U.S. or Canada. We are flying from Ohio out to Minneapolis, MN then we’re taking a shuttle to Iowa, where we’ll pick up the RV that will be our hotel, restaurant and vehicle for three weeks. 

   

Then we begin our 4322 mile drive.

All those miles together with our two teenaged daughters and nine year old son might sound daunting.  In fact, I’m looking forward to the quality time. We’re bringing our favorite road trip music which we plan to play and sing quite loudly (I guess that will keep the bears away!)  

I’m not overly romantic about it though.  I’m sure the close quarters might get tiresome and tempers will surely flare occasionally but we are used to being on the road together.  Our round trip road trip from Ohio to Seattle a couple of years ago was a total of about 5000 miles but we stayed in Seattle for about a month so that broke up the driving. And we all agreed that was the best trip we’d ever taken!

My biggest worry, other than the bears of course, is driving an RV.  I’ve never driven anything longer than our old Delta 88 that we had when we first got married. This thing is going to be 28 feet long!  Those curvy mountain roads that we’re bound to travel up and down are scary enough in a minivan!  I hope I don’t run us, or anyone else off the road!

Have a great day and drive safely!

Kathy :)

Road Trip!

The kids couldn't wait to pile into the minvan yesterday.  They packed all their stuff into their suitcases.  Even my 6 year old packed his own clothes.  (I hope he remembered underwear!)  By 10:30 am. we were finally ready to go.  Unknown to me, my husband had had the kids answer a list of questions for Mother's Day.  In the van he handed me my own set of questions.  I was supposed to answer them out loud and then hear what the kids had said about me.  It was great to hear all the funny  and wonderful things my kids said about me.  My 6 yr old son, ever the joker, answered the question "How are you like your mom?", with "We both have ears."  My daughters were far more detailed.  My favorite were their answers to "What makes you proud of your mom?"  They put things like, "she is honest, she doesn't give up, she likes to learn new things".  I think I teared up.  It was the best present I could have gotten. It doesn't always feel like it, but I guess my kids really do understand me. 
45 minutes later my son asked, "How many more hours til we get there?"
Only 7 more hours to go!

I hope all of you moms had a great Mother's Day yesterday! 

I will try to continue posting off and on this week but we have spotty internet here.  Next week I will get back to my regular posts.  Have a great week!      


Kathy