On the road again

You may or may not know that in January we got home from a 4-week (more precisely, 31-day) road trip across the United States and back. I want to try to write down some memories about it before I forget them.

Sometime this fall while planning our annual holiday travel to see family, Matt and I decided that we wanted to take the kids to Disneyland for their Christmas present. We also decided that we wanted to spend Christmas in Utah with our family there, as well as go to my parents’ 50th anniversary shindig at Pigeon Point in California, as well as spend New Year’s in LA with our family there, AS WELL AS go to Disneyland with our kids, but also not go too close to New Year’s Day (which is what we did 5 years ago and it was so incredibly crowded)… Upon thinking about all of this, we realized that we would need to be gone for a pretty long time to make all of this work. Like maybe 3 weeks. And 3 weeks of renting a minivan is $$$$ (so much more to rent a 6-seater car than a 5-seater). So THEN, we realized that driving our own car would be cheaper, and also sort of a fun and funny thing to do.

Thus our epic road trip was born.

We left on December 15, which was a Friday. The kids had school that day, and for some reason I thought they got out 2 hours early because it was the last day before winter break, but once 1:00 came and went and 1:30 came and went we realized… Whoops. They were not getting out early that day. Meanwhile the car was packed and loaded and the clock was ticking, so Matt went and fetched the kids early anyway. We drove and drove and drove, arriving in Toledo Ohio around 9 or 10 p.m. The next day we got up and drove and drove and DROVE, arriving in North Platte Nebraska that night, and if you know I-80, you know that that is like a gazillion miles. We left at 8:30 a.m. and arrived close to midnight, so. You do the math. I won’t, because I don’t have to. You don’t have to either. You just have to trust me. It was a really really long day in that car.

Sunday we got up and drove and drove and arrived in Salt Lake around 6 p.m. We had made the ~36-hour drive in about 54 hours. Not a super pleasant way to pass 54 hours, but we did it.

Monday morning our vacation really began. Well, the kids’ did. Matt had to work (he worked remotely during most of our trip) and I had to take care of the kids… Well there were also two other adults there, since we were staying at Matt’s parents’ house. So I guess my vacation started too. :)

Next post: Christmas in Salt Lake City!