Have a cup and sit for a while...

So... I thought I'd share some virtual tea with you today.  If you'd rather have coffee, you're going to have to go somewhere else, or maybe pick up some from Starbucks, because when I make coffee, you get two choices, sludge or colored water.  Either way... it's just not good.   My husband is the coffee drinker and maker in the family and when he is home I am more than happy to share that pot of coffee, but when he's away, I pack that coffee maker up and store it in one of the cabinets, because it's just collecting dust out on the counter.

It really would be nice to have you over for a cup of tea today.  It certainly would get me motivated to clean a little more.  My house would be grateful.  My kids might not be, since I would probably get them working too and while they are all very good helpers and will do the chores given to them, none of them actually WANT to clean.

So... How have you been?  Did you have a good weekend?  Did you keep warm?!

Let me tell you what I've been thinking about... My trip.  It seems to be the one thing that occupies my mind day and night.   We know that in August we're going to have to move from Washington DC to Washington state.  That's going to happen one way or another, but HOW exactly we are going to get there has been up for debate for quite a while.  It's been a fun debate.   I bet by the time August rolls around, you'll all be sick and tired of hearing about this trip.   But it's a pretty big deal for me.  It's the first time that I'll be doing a cross country trip without my husband which means that I'll be doing ALL the driving.  No sitting back and reading a book for me.  :(  I might occasionally let the two older kids drive, but I can't really think about that right now because it gives me butterflies.

We've joked about contacting TLC or the Discovery Channel and proposing a TV show.
 "One mom, three teens and an eleven year old spend a month traveling from Washington DC to Washington State in the family mini-van, checking out the sights from big city attractions to off-road oddities and everything in between." 

Sounds like a show, right?

One of the hardest parts in planning this trip was simply narrowing it down to a general route.  The whole country lay before us and any number of routes were possible, but where did we really want to go?

Suggestions ranged from Grant's:

Start in Maine, travel across Canada, ferry down Lake Michigan and then hit Rt 66 and go south all the way to Mexico then up through Baja California, and the West coast to Seattle.

Yeah... no...

Or....

Quincy thought that if we were going to go for it, we might as well catch a plane to England, trek across Europe and Asia and take a boat from Japan to Seattle.

Intriguing but not likely.

The Disney to Disney route got a lot of excitement.  I even considered it for about a second until I decided that it was too long and too hot a route.

We narrowed it down a little further and were making "smaller" decisions, like North Dakota or South Dakota?  Chicago or Michigan?  Yellowstone or Glacier National Park?  Canada? or not.

(Have I mentioned that we don't really DO straight lines when we travel?)

It was a little overwhelming and confusing, but on Sunday night, I finally came up with a plan!!  GREAT!!! Now all I needed to do was fine tune the details.

But then it all came to a screeching halt!!!  FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND Harley Davidsons (and other assorted makes of motorcycles) roared smack dab into my plans.  The very week that I thought we would rent a quiet cabin and tool around the Black Hills of South Dakota is the same week that the Sturgis motorcycle rally is taking place this year.   That's a traffic jam that I don't even want to contemplate.

image found here

And so....  back to the drawing board.

Do we skip South Dakota entirely or do we try to rearrange the dates of our trip?  We've seen Mt. Rushmore and Crazy Horse before and they're really cool, and we'd love to see them again, but are they important enough to change our whole schedule for them?  And if we don't go through SD, I guess we'll head up through North Dakota.  (It's always good to have a spare Dakota... you never know when one is going to be over-run with motorcycles.)

 aww... they're so little!

Does anyone (and by anyone I mean someone in particular... you know who you are) have any great ideas about things to do in North Dakota?  I'm thinking Teddy Roosevelt NP, but what else is there that I don't know about?  And I would love to hear if anyone else has any insights about any of these places.

Chicago, IL
Des Moines, Iowa
Omaha, NE
North Dakota
Montana
Glacier NP
Calgary
Banff NP
Kelowna, BC

Have you been there?  Do you live there?
I'd love to hear it all from the obvious to the off the beaten path to the crazy roadside sights to the food that we must not miss. 

Well now... if we were having tea together (or coffee) I think I may have just monopolized the conversation... sorry.

But that's what comments are for!!

What about you?  Are you already making summer plans?  Is that what's getting you through the winter doldrums?  What kinds of adventures do you have planned both near and far? 

 I tell ya... that trip is constantly occupying my mind.  But it's fun to think about, so why not?