Final Road Trip Thoughts - Part 2

In July 2009, we took our first Road Trip as a family to the Grand Canyon (Here's a link to our first travel blog on that trip).  That trip became a milestone in the life of our family.  Eric created a photo album of the pictures and blog that we produced.  It sits in high honor on our coffee table and gets pulled out whenever we want to tell the story of our family to anyone.  Something happened in our family in those two weeks - we grew closer, we shared a common adventure, and our stories became entwined - parents and kids.  Once we returned, we wanted to attempt something similar.  However, life never stays static.  The next year we moved to Cornelia - a whole new kind of adventure.  Last year we attempted to recreate it with a trip to Seattle with my mom.  We traveled via airplane, stayed in one hotel, and visited family - it was much fun, but it definitely didn't have the same feel as a road trip.

This year, there was definitely this feeling that if we could not pull this trip together we might not have same opportunity in the coming years.  Our kids are getting older and trying to get our of the house.  This year, we tried to schedule a two week road trip and we couldn't find 2 weeks in the entire summer or year when one member of our family didn't have something to attend (camps, dance, church ministries, school, training).  Even when we scheduled this trip - the dates kept getting shorter.  Marcia couldn't get off early from school - so we left a day after I had originally planned.  Then, we had a wonderful member of our church die so we had to return a day early.  Nothing was as we planned - but it all was exactly what we wanted - time away with our family.

As we were planning the trip, I said - I knew only two things - when we would leave and when we would return and some of the stops along the way.  Even this was wrong - the beginning and ending even changed.  We really don't have control of any of these things in our lives - we just have the opportunity to make the most of each day and each opportunity as it comes our way.  We never know what the next day will hold.

I will close our Travel blog with a few changes we have seen over the last 4 years from our road trip in 2009 to this one.  My what 4 years can do:

Ages change:  2009:  Eric was the only one who was 40, Sarah was 12 and Sydney was 8.  Here's a picture of us there.  2013:  Eric has welcomed Marcia into the 40's.  Sarah is now 16 and driving.  Sydney is 12 - the same age as Sarah on our earlier journey.

Technology change:  In 2009, we traveled with a borrowed GPS, a laptop and Eric's flip phone.  In 2013, we left the laptop at home and traveled with a GPS, an Iphone 5, an iphone 4.5, an ipod touch, an ipad, a kindle, 2 cameras and 2 text oriented phones.  Wow, that makes me overwhelmed just typing it.  We used our iphones for everything - we made our hotel reservations on motel apps, we found great restaurants via Trip Advisor, we started using the google maps GPS to direct us when our GPS started driving us in a circle in Boston (trust means a lot on unfamiliar roads), we took our best pictures on these phones, we made videos called Vines and posted these for the world to see.  We checked email through the iphone, texted friends, updated friends through facebook, read the newspapers on them, listened to radio shows, watched videos, googled places, names, and history whenever we found something unfamiliar and wanted to know more about it, and updated our blog - all on a phone as we are traveling.  I literally have a hard time imagining doing life before these phones.  We forget how transformative these small computers in our pockets are - but they really are amazing.

Car Change:  We  drove a 2007 black Honda Pilot  in 2009 and drove a 2011 on this one.  Both vehicles served us very well and we didn't have any problems - except for loosing power to our back power socket which caused us to lose our picnic food after Niagara Falls.  We love our Pilot!

Movies:  In 2009 we borrowed lots of movies from friends and used them to entertain the girls.  In 2013 - it was all about Red Box. Using a red box app on our phone, we would find a Red Box next to the interstate exit, check out a movie and keep driving.  We would return one movie the next day and get a new one.  Another new change in the world.