Looking Back

It's been one week since we arrived home from our trip out west. It's been a good week home with lots of post-vacation errands - groceries, laundry, cleaning, baking and yard work. I know it's all work but it feels good to get in the regular routine of life again. It's also the last week before school starts so the kids have been having fun playing with all their 'old' toys again. As I've said to so many people since we got back, it seems like our vacation was surreal. I'm sure glad we took as many photos as we did (1200 in total) so that we actually have proof of what we saw and did :)

Some questions and answers that you may have about the trip: Would we do it again? Were the kids always well-behaved? Did everything goes as planned? Any regrets? Was towing a large trailer stressful?

Yes, we would definitely do a trip like that again. It was such a blessing for us to be able to take four weeks to do a trip of that length. Our very detailed planning helped a lot and made for stress-free travel days. We had all of our nights booked on the way down so we knew how far we had to travel each day. Each day we started driving between 6am-7am and stopped between 3pm-4pm. This works very well with kids, as they are still a bit dopey in the early morning hours and full of energy to burn by mid afternoon. Almost all of the campgrounds we stopped at, both there and back, had a pool and playground. This is pretty much a 'must' for kids after a long day of driving.

Of course, the kids were not always well behaved. A blog always gives the positive or the 'bright side' of things as it's not encouraging for others to read about the negatives or 'down sides' of life. We definitely had meltdown moments and trying times but not anymore than if we were at home. If anything, they were less. Each day was a new adventure and held something exciting to look forward to. I had packed a special travel bag with fun new books, toys, markers and games to keep the kids busy. Oh, and don't forget about the food! Keeping each kid occupied with little bowls of snacks, kills a lot of travel time and keeps them plenty happy. We also established a routine for each day; early morning - rest time; mid morning - snack and games, reading, crafts, listening to audio books; lunchtime - running around at a rest area; early afternoon - naptime/quiet time; mid afternoon - movie time and snack; late afternoon - more audio books and arrival time. The kids got used to this routine and knew what to expect each travel day.

Everything did go as planned. There were no surprises on the trip. The weather was absolutely amazing, traffic and construction was very rare (we only had one small slowdown through Chicago and some construction before Yellowstone), and our vehicle and trailer operated as expected. We did have a pin break on us at our camping location in the Okanagan. It happened as Colin was backing into our site and there was too much pressure on the hitch. We're thankful it happened at the beginning of our week there and so he had the whole week to try to get it fixed. As it was, he took it to a welding shop on the Monday after our arrival and, $30 later it was fixed!

The above paragraph pretty much answers the next question. We have no regrets! There's is nothing that we can say we should have done or seen, and we didn't. We knew we couldn't stop and see everything but what we did see, surpassed all of our expectations! Spending a week with Colin's family was very fun and a real blessing. The fact that we got to see so much of God's creation on top of all of that, gives us much to be thankful for.

Towing a trailer was also a blessing. It was so handy to have our food and beds with us at all times. Set up time was very minimal when we arrived at our locations each night. This meant if we were tired and hot we could head on over to the pool. Feeding seven people three times a day can also be an expensive venture. (We only ate out twice, on our own expense, during the whole four weeks.) With a trailer, we always had access to good food and snacks. It was so convenient to stop for lunch - getting cold juice out of the fridge, making cream cheese bagels and finishing up with some yogurt. I also made meals for the first part of the trip. This meant I didn't have to think about cooking after a long day of driving. I made enough for two suppers and put them in a ziploc bag in the freezer. I don't think we really cooked for the first week! As for the other details about towing, you'll have to inquire of Colin by leaving a comment or question on this blog. He has accurately documented our travel times, gas mileage and towing specifics (especially regarding the mountains). I do know that he never minded driving with our trailer and was only stressed the odd time on a very long mountain climb.

So, there you have it! Not all of this will be interesting to all, but I do know some of my blog readers are interested in doing a trip like this themselves someday. I hope that some of this information can be of value to them. It was also an exercise in retrieving facts and memories from our trip so that we, as a family, can remember and look back on it all some day. Now, comes the big job of putting together a digital photo album, to print, for our coffee table :)

I now return to regular programming on this blog.