Roadtrip Brain Dump

[Warning:  This post is going to read more like a journal entry.....a little peek into my mind, if you will.  Don't say I didn't warn you....could be kind of scattered!]

We don't have too much time left before this trip will take place.  Michael has wanted to take this trip for a long time and had finally convinced me that we could pull it off and I conceded to it once I realized that our youngest would now be old enough to have actual memories from the trip. We've been talking about it seriously for about a year since our friends from SoCal came to visit last spring and we realized we wanted to see them again and purchasing 5 plane tickets to LAX wasn't going to happen.

When we mention that we are doing this, we get one of two responses: 

1.  Y'all are crazy. 

2. That's amazing!!! My family did a trip like that when I was a kid and it was truly a highlight from my childhood.

We don't know anybody else who has done this trip recently, and I really haven't been able to find a blog or a pinterest board that describes this type of journey exactly.  That's one of the reasons I decided to start this blog!  I wanted it to be a resource for people to use in the future because once everybody sees what a genius plan this is, the jealousy factor is going to be SKY HIGH and you'll all be scrambling to plan your own WOW trip. 

I don't know who is more excited about this trip--the kids talk about it daily and once we made official reservations the other day, I suddenly got VERY excited. (even though they were CAMPGROUND reservations!!! More on the fact that I'm not NOT! not a camper on another day...)

There is SO MUCH to do to get ready for this trip.  I'm a little bit afraid to sit down and actually make a list of the things I need to think about and take care of because ignorance is bliss.  Ignorance is also unprepared, so it's time for mama to be a big girl and not do what I usually do when it comes to trip planning/packing:  procrastinate. 

SO....I think that's what I'll do for the rest of this blog post.  I'm going to make a "to do list":

1.  Finish making camping reservations for Part 2 of the trip (San Francisco/Yosemite/Albuquerque)
2.  Make a packing list for each person
3.  Make a car entertainment packing list (ipods, chargers, etc)
4.  Brainstorm some snacks and meals-on-the-road that will fit into our cooler
5.  Find and assess quality of our sleeping bags.  Do we have 5 good ones?
6.  Check on typical nighttime weather conditions for the places we will be camping. How chilly does it get at night?
7.  Make spotify playlists for the car
8.  What does the car need done, maintenance-wise, before we go?
9.  Download any roadtrip apps that will help us
10.  Research what we should do during our 2 days in Rocky Mountains
11.  Research what we should do during our 1 1/2 days at the Grand Canyon
12.  Do we need to buy tickets for the Angels baseball game ahead of time?
13.  What should we do in San Francisco (2-3 days)?  Do we need tickets or reservations for Alcatraz?
14.  Arrange for house sitter while we're gone 
15.  Buy or borrow a little travel TV/DVD player for the car

I'm sure there is so much more....I think I'll stop there for now because, that's plenty!