Countdown: A day shy of 17 weeks

We are taking a trip! We never take real trips or vacations. That's fine with me, I'd rather spend our non-existent money on more vital things. But this year we are driving across the country. I think it first became an idea over a year and a half ago when we had to drive to NC for a wedding. We liked it. We had fun. And somewhere along the line we came up with the idea of driving across the country. Jacob was a year and a half then and we figured that if we waited til this summer he would be, A) mature enough to stay for that long in the car; B) old enough to possibly remember the trip, or parts of it; and C) if we waited much longer past that point I would either be pregnant or we'd have a newborn and who would we be kidding to think that a cross-country trip would be a viable option in a sane person's world in either of those scenarios.

Our current level of progress/committment is as follows:

~ I started saving money for the trip back in September. Whenever we've got extra I tuck it away in a little envelope (in my mother's care, of course, as I am not to be trusted with any kind of liquid assest). Hey, if the trip doesn't work out, we can either have another addition to the house, or there'll be one big shopping spree!

~ Zach requested the time off from work last month, and three weeks ago we firmed up the date to align with a certain family event in a certain city on a certain date (June 30th).

~ Two weeks ago I checked out a bunch of books and videos on different areas that we want to visit. We watched the Yellowstone video that night and told Jacob all about Old Faithful, explaining what geysers are (oops, and I just learned how to spell geyser) - and none of the video/books have been touched since, yet have racked up some steep late fees.

~ Last week we made a special trip to my mom's so Zach could peruse the road atlas. He made a list of 13 states for which I have been given the tast of picking up maps for from AAA. Montana is all he has talked about since.

~ Lastly, back in December an RV contact of Zach's offered us free use of an RV. This one I am banking in the 'Too Good to Be True' category for now.

Welp, stay tuned for updates as I tackle the tricky business of planning, arranging care for the dogs and rabbits, and packing...and certainly expect updates from the road!