Wrap Up and Pros and Cons

The 30 days went so fast. I have never had a vacation where I was so relaxed and had so much fun. The thing that made it so fantastic was not having an agenda. We never booked a hotel until at least 3:00 in the afternoon. There is something so romantic and exciting about not knowing where you are going day by day. Not knowing what you are going to see. We never knew what time it was, what day or date it was and half the time we forgot what city or state we were in. It was awesome! I didn’t worry about how much money we were spending, I never said “No” to anything my husband wanted to do or anywhere he wanted to go. I just went along. It was liberating. I wish all vacations could be this way.

Another reason I was so relaxed was that I had prepared a month’s worth of lesson plans for my class, paid all the bills and with my children being grown, I had no real responsibilities for them. Everything was taken care of for a month. I really never thought about much during the trip except spending time with my husband and enjoying myself. My husband didn’t have a job so he did not have any phone calls, emails or clients to interfere with our trip.

By the time I got to my parents house in Maryland on the last two days of our trip, reality started setting in. I looked at my work email, the children started telling me what was going on at home and little by little I got drawn back into my real life.  This served as a debriefing before we returned home which we knew was inevitable. I am thankful that I got to see my parents, my two sisters, their families and my brother and his wife. I am thankful that I spent time with my uncle and aunt in Iowa and their wonderful family.

This past Friday night and Saturday my children and their families came over. It was wonderful. It didn’t take long to get drawn back into everyday life. Looking over the mail, seeing the dust on the floor after 30 days, doing the laundry, grocery shopping and cooking dinner. Oh well, it was a remarkable 30 days and I am grateful that I was able to do it.

A lot of people have asked what was the best thing I saw. We experienced many wonderful, beautiful and spectacular sights in our travels. But there wasn’t one thing that stood out more than the other. The Grand Canyon was surreal, the Carlsbad Caverns were mystifying, and the California Mountains were magnificent. But, for me, nothing that we saw was the most memorable part of this trip. The most memorable and wonderful thing about this trip was that I had 696 hours with my husband without having to share him and his time with anyone else. This time with him was priceless because he is an extremely social person and a “networking fool.” We had many hours of fun, laughing at each other and at ourselves and reconnecting away from the rest of the world. That was by far the best part of this trip.

Many people have asked about the pros and cons of this trip. In a nutshell here are my thoughts:

1) Don’t do it until your children are grown. (If you are anything like me all you will do is feel guilty about not being there for them and won’t be able to enjoy yourself)

2) Don’t do it if you have to do work or have other responsibilities that need to be dealt with during your trip (You have to be able to focus on nothing but having fun)

3) Don’t have an agenda! (This makes it more fun and exciting)

4) I think the reason it worked for us is because we have been happily married for 32 years. I’m not sure being together for 696 hours would work as well for a newly married couple or a couple who’s marriage is struggling.

5) Don’t worry about the cost, it will ruin the trip.We saved money by eating free breakfasts at the hotel if they offered it and by only eating two meals most days. We used out AAA discount to save money on the hotel.

6) Every season will have pros and cons. Going in the winter was cold, some things weren’t open in the winter, we could have hit some bad weather (we didn’t and I don’t like traveling when it is hot) and we came across fewer tourists and less traffic than we would have in the summer.

Don’t wait until you retire to do something like this.

Map Showing Our Trip

Here is a map showing our route around the US.

We were on the road for 29 days, 696 hours (over 150 of them in the car) drove 8847 miles, stayed in 20 hotels, stopped in over 40 cities, drove through 23 states, and went coast to coast and we are still married!

I will try to post my wrap-up tomorrow!

Last Days of the Trip

We decided to go someplace and stay for two nights before we headed to Maryland to visit my family and then back home on Friday.  After changing our minds several times we chose Atlantic City, NJ as the final hurrah. Boppy wanted to be able to say we went from coast to coast on our road trip. Atlantic City was pretty much deserted but we had two nice, quiet days before having to come back to reality.

Below are some pictures. I will write a blog to wrap up the trip and my thoughts this weekend.

Myself, my Mom and one of my sisters

Entering Atlantic City, NJ at night

Snow on the beach at Atlantic City

One of the many tunnels we drove through on the way to NJ

Just like Las Vegas, Atlantic City is not as pretty in the daylight

Burlington, Iowa

I spent Friday with my relatives in Burlington, Iowa. We left on Saturday to head towards Lima, Ohio to visit some of my husband’s relatives. We are staying in Danville, Illinois for the night. The next few days will be moving, somewhat reluctantly, towards NC. We will try to stop in Maryland to visit more relatives of mine next week.

One note: I discovered that my cousin Tina shares my love of tumbleweeds. We both would love to have tumbleweeds of our own but they are too big to fit in the car unless we can throw one of the passengers out.

Hoewing Cousins (Tina, Rebecca, Candi)

Bum, Boppy, Aunt Barb and Uncle Wayne

Frozen Missisippi River in Iowa

Omaha, Nebraska

Pony Express Building

Dinosaur along route 80 into Omaha

We spent most of Thursday driving from North Platte, Nebraska to Omaha. We are in route heading back home and stopping to visit relatives on the way. We have been on the road for three weeks. It went so fast! We only stopped once and it was at the original pony express building. Of course, Boppy had to get a picture of himself using his phone in front of the building.

Omaha was suppose to be just a place to sleep along the route. I have always heard that Nebraska is boring, nothing to see, nothing to do. I ended up loving Omaha. We arrived at 12:30 and had lunch with a gentleman we had never met. His son works with and is good friends with our youngest daughter. He is a lawyer had lived in Omaha his entire life and he was very interesting. After lunch we went several blocks down the street to Starbucks (surprise, surprise) and had coffee with a woman we had gone to high school with in Maryland. She has lived in Omaha for over 20 years. That was interesting as well.

Boppy had his mind set on eating a good ole Omaha steak. Three people recommended Piccolo’s because it was cheap and was one of the original Omaha steak houses. It was good food and a lot of food for you dollar. It was decorated as it had been since the 50′s but it was good food.

We then walked around the Market area which is the historic area of town. The buildings were as interesting as the businesses in them. No chain stores or restaurants here. Very unique places. The streets are wide and there is a good mixture of tall and short buildings. The sunshine could get in and I didn’t feel claustrophobic like I did in San Francisco.

Well, off to Burlington, Iowa to see relatives.

Bum

Wyoming

Wyoming wildlife

Cheyenne, Wyoming

Rt 80 East Wyoming

We headed out early towards Nebraska hoping to get closer to Omaha before it got dark. The trip started out great. Beautiful snow covered mountains, lots of deer, elk and antelope roaming over the mountains leaving hundreds of footprints in the snow.

We started noticing signs that said “Strong Winds and Blowing Snow- No Light Trailers” and the variable speed signs were gradually changed from 75 mph to 35 mph. We even saw numerous exits that said “Exit here if lights are flashing”. We couldn’t figure out what was going on. It was windy but sunny.A small amount of snow was blowing across the road. We took pictures and said “Isn’t this beautiful.”

We went over the next hill and we could feel the wind shaking our car. A tractor trailer had been knocked over. The wind was picking up and the blowing snow looked like a blizzard. Visibility was at near zero. We slowed to a crawl knowing we couldn’t just stop or we would certainly get hit.  Up ahead we saw a tractor trailer and another car. Boppy started to apply the brakes but he realized the road had turned into a sheet of ice. We heard a horrible noise to our right and we looked in terror as a tractor trailer came flying out of the snow nearly hitting us. The driver realized there was ice and stopped applying his brakes. Thank goodness there was a shoulder because otherwise he would have taken out us and the other car.

Luckily there was a rest stop several miles down the road. There were many cars and trucks at the rest stop. When we had decided to give it another try I looked up and saw a sign that told how important the wind was for the animals. If not for the wind the elk, deer and antelope would have nothing to eat. The wind blows the snow off the grass for them. The last line said, “Remember, the Wyoming winds are our friends.” I love wildlife but that was too much!

Thankfully a few miles down the road it was back to a bright sunny day. We stopped in Cheyenne, Wyoming to have lunch and then to North Platte, Nebraska for the night.

So long Wyoming and Route 80.

Bum

Travel to Wyoming

We spent today driving from Boise, Idaho across the north tip of Utah and just across the Wyoming border. We stopped early so we could wash some clothes before finishing up our trip.

The map below shows our travels. The blue squares with the white check mark show different places we either stopped at or just drove by and signed in with an app called Four Square. It shows how far we have traveled. Below that are some random photos from our travels.

Will post some more when we get back on the road.

Bum

Our Journey Thus Far

On the road in Utah

Utah

Beautiful wildlife