We'll make our drive across country in a handful of days. We wouldn't purposely create this hellish nightmare with our three kids, but with airlines being the way they are, it made sense.
I love to plan WAY in advance for trips so that I'm not overcome with stress at the last minute (I will not reveal what month I started cleaning out my van for this trip because it might get me launched into the asylum). I physically get stress nauseated not to mention my history with nausea with carsickness. It's a bad combo with an extra side of Dramamine.
I want to make sure we have covered everything from bike gear, to swim gear, to climbing gear, to family reunion gear. Plus, I don't want to hear "why did you not bring____?" There is a lot of responsibility placed on a mom when a family of 5 decides to take adventures like this, not to mention, packing just the necessities into one little compartmental bag. I'm a moody dresser too, so it's hard to fit my items into a LITTLE bag.
Also, when I plan to go on a trip I don't like to waste time figuring out where to eat and what to do. I like to see it, enjoy it, and then I'm out. In preparation, I researched, tagged, cut, stapled, and taped on things we could possibly do. Since I didn't know where we were going to stop, I decided to plot out the entire road trip, just in case. If a kid needs to go to the bathroom, I wanted to make my stop worth it.
One afternoon, I started to chuckle amongst my maps because it reminded me of Mr. John Nash from the movie A Beautiful Mind. Planning all this stuff that might not go anywhere. My house wrapped in colorful, tagged maps.
Luckily it cleans up nicely, and luckily this process wrapped up late one night (again, if I told you how long I worked on this, it would land me into that same asylum).
Sad to say, I already have the snacks packed for the trip. I've had them packed since the beginning of this week. I might have gone too far, but if we had to leave tomorrow, I wanted to make sure my lamp is full.
The journey starts next week, come tour the United States with us as we hit the road. We're stopping in Lexington, Louisville, Nashville, St. Louis, Topeka, Denver, Aspen,and then on to our hometowns. Also, let me know if I need to stop anywhere amazing along the way. I can easily insert tags on my handy, visual map.
7 comments:
Say hi to the Reynolds while you are in Nashville! Have a good trip and maybe we can see you while you are in town???
That's amazing! I'm going to hire you to plan our next road trip or just go on trips with you. I don't have the patience to plan it, but I want trips like that.
Say howdy to Lexington, KY for us! I really miss that place!! Enjoy your fab trip and be safe!
I so love the way you plan....especially because I get lots of good ideas from the fun things you guys do as a result of all your planning!
are those page protectors in that binder? Jared will want to see this in person
What an organizer! And only another mother can appreciate that. :0) Good luck and have fun on your trip. We're headed to Utah in July. When will y'all be in St. George?
That sure is a school of gold fish I see!
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