Road Trip or Bust!?!

Until earlier this summer, we hadn’t been on a road trip in 5 years!?!  Can you tell that traveling with young kids in a car for long periods of time is not my current cup of tea ?

A rest stop overlooking the Snake River on the Idaho/Oregon border during our Summer 2007 road trip.

But travel on the road we did … for nearly two weeks.

Same Snake River rest stop during our Summer 2012 Road Trip.

[Though I must admit that I am extremely grateful we built in some "home" days for Randy to help us cope and adjust better.  The day before we packed up and left he was home to help.  And then when we returned, we had three more days together ... hooray for 2 adults in the house! ... before Randy needed to go back to work.  Best decision ever so we could all unwind and enjoy things at a slower pace.]

We decided back in February that we would make the trek from Western Washington, through Oregon, and head to Boise and Salt Lake City to visit family and friends – some of these people we hadn’t seen in years.  And since February it was constantly weighing on my mind.  In fact I even separated out things in my head to things I would deal with pre-trip, and things I didn’t even have to think about until post-trip.

Mr. Eli thought he could re-arrange inside furniture at rest stops  

I had many reservations about going [the stress of planning and packing for a family of 6, trying to figure out how to feed picky eaters while on the road, the exhaustion that comes from going to bed way too late and from sleeping in different places, having babies and kids completely off their routine, and the worry list goes on and on], but we knew we were doing the right thing.

Burning off pent up energy at rest stops …

It also helped for me to think of this adventure as a trip and not a vacation.

After all, we were doing this mainly for the kids.  We wanted them to have some cousin time, some grandparent time, some meeting-new-friends time (i.e. getting to know the children of mom’s and dad’s college friends).  We wanted to share some of our history with them.  And we wanted to help them build some magical childhood memories.

So were the sacrifices we made as parents worth it? Was this intense labor of love a good thing?

Yes.

A resounding yes.

We loved the spontaneous thunderstorms while there.  It would rain so hard that it would clean off the gazillion dead bugs that were squashed all over our windshield.

Overall this family trip was a success [notice I didn't say it was all a success ... jut keeping it real and honest.  I may or may not have proclaimed when we were about to reach our final destination on the way to Utah that I had had enough "mommy-ing" from the wee ones riding in the car].

And I am grateful for the amazing and delightful memories my kids now have to cherish.  They can tuck this summer away in their minds as one to remember.

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