Driving and Justification

Probably won’t be a whole lot to report today with a whole heap of driving between Soda Springs, California and Centerville, Utah (knock on wood because we don’t want anything exciting to report on a driving day). We left Camp Winthers around 6:30 this morning and we hope to get to our friends in Utah around dinnertime. 

So today I will go into a little more detail about the trip.  Since we were heading back East for Grandma Kit’s interment and the original plan was to drive, we figured we really should see some sites and visit some friends along the way.  We started making some preliminary plans, and then something happened that changed our direction of thinking a little. 

First of all, you have to understand that our kids have an unredeemed gift certificate from last Christmas as you can see above.  Instead of getting our kids a big present last year, Grandma Kit agreed to pitch in with Becky and I for a Disneyland trip sometime in 2014.  So in addition to trip back East, we still owe our kids a DL trip at some point this year.  Our whole family loves the TV show The Middle – I think the kids and Becky (not me, of course) relate in one way or anther to each of the characters, plus it’s just so funny.  In the season finale this year, the Heck family, who lives in Indiana, won tickets for a family trip to Disney World only to find out when they arrived in Orlando, they had checked the box to get tickets to Disneyland in California instead. 

That gave us an idea – we owed our kids a trip to Disneyland, but we were heading to the East Coast.  Why not tie it into the Heck’s trip and tell them they had the wrong gift certificate?  We wanted to surprise them once we started the trip, but one of the kids accidentally saw something about the trip on the computer (which they were supposed to ask to use beforehand, by the way).  So we had them bring in their gift certificate and gave them the spiel about having the wrong park like the Hecks.  None of us have ever been to Disney World, so do you think they were excited when they found out?  Check out some of their artwork for the past few weeks, and you tell me.

What about the Harry Potter stuff in the pictures? you might ask.  Well, this summer, Universal Studios just opened Diagon Alley, their 2^nd Harry Potter themed area in their Orlando resort.  Alex (and Zac, but especially Alex) loooove the Harry Potter books and movies.  The way we figured it, we have never been to Orlando before, and we will probably not be going back anytime soon – and Alex will be on her own in 3 short years.  If we were going to be there anyway, how could we not go to Universal as well?  So a week or so after our kids found out about Disney World, an owl appeared on our doorstep holding a parchment letter informing them that they get to spend some time at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter also.  Katie may have been thrilled by Disney World, but 15-year old Alex seemed the most excited about the new addition to the trip. 

If anyone is worried about us losing our home and having to move into our now 24-year old RV after this trip is done, we have a plan for that as well.  Becky has been a full time mom and daughter for the past several years raising our kids and taking care of her mom as her health began declining.  Now that our kids are a little older and Kit is no longer with us, Becky is planning to re-enter the job force once we get back from this summers adventure.  She will at least go back to substitute teaching, but if anyone knows of a fantastic job for someone with a degree in Psychology and fifteen years experience as a domestic engineer, feel free to let us know. 

I started this post while Becky was taking a turn driving, but now we have reached our friends’ house in Utah.  One more big drive day, and then the real adventure begin.  Stay tuned.