Day 6 - Illinois

Let's see... Cornfields, cornfields, more cornfields, and noticeably more green in between, but for the most part, today we drove through Iowa and Illinois without stopping to do much touring. The one thing that struck me was the motorcyclists that weren't wearing helmets. I guess Illinois doesn't have a helmet law. We also endured our first traffic jam. Not much else happened today that was notable. I think we are getting a little tired of the road and just want to drive on to the next place. Currently we are staying at a hotel at Tinley Park near Chicago. But even though Chicago is a cool city, and we are on schedule, we had no desire to stop and check it out. Tomorrow we will hit the bottom of Lake Michigan, and drive up the Michigan coast for awhile before cutting across to Grandma and Grandpa's house near Detroit. The kids are really excited to see their grandparents and uncle. They are still doing remarkably well on the drive, alternating between taking naps and watching movies on the DVD player. Kaelyn either has a cold or terrible allergies. We think it's allergies, and has probably contributed to her ability to nap more in the car. Justin gets really wired after sitting for so long, so it was nice to stop early tonight and get some swimming in before dinner. I didn't take any pictures on this leg.

It's funny how we started out thinking we would just "take it easy" and do some touring along the way, but then goals take over. I actually had one moment today where I got this wave of feeling lost in the middle of nowhere, and what pulled me out of it was picking a target town to stay in. As soon as I had a destination, I had a comfortable feeling of being somewhere tangible, even if it was just 75 miles to our arbitrary hotel. But then my tendency to focus on the goal took over, and I'd get antsy if we took too many breaks and "wasted" too much time. I would make up a time that I expected we would arrive and suddenly this arbitrary deadline began pulling at me. I wonder what it would be like not to have any place to go or anyone to meet for several months. Would that make me feel more free to delve into all of the places of interest that I pass by and really immerse myself in them? And, if so, then what am I doing now - a race around the country? For example, we passed a Herbert Hoover museum, the birthplace of Abraham Lincoln, the birth city of Ronald Reagan, and we crossed the Mississippi River. And now we're passing Chicago. But I'm not feeling like visiting. Very interesting....

Day 5 - Hanging out in Iowa

Here is the cornfield in the back of my friend Donna's house. Corn is MUCH taller when you are close up than when you see it from the highway.

It was really nice to have a day with no driving. We had nice home-cooked meals, including Omaha steaks, fresh sweet corn, watermelon, and home-made apple pie for dinner.

The kids played in the pool, went to a park and fed the geese, rented paddleboats for a ride on a small lake, and got rides on the four-wheeler at night. They loved playing with Donna's kids. Justin was so excited to have a baby to play with and wanted a baby brother. He asked Donna if we could take baby Max with us. Kaelyn loved the kids too - but really made friends with the dogs. She played with them all day, and even made friends with the dog at the boat rental place.

Kaelyn really wants to get a dog when we get home. We promised we'd think about it after this big long trip was over - maybe around Christmas time.

Donna and I had a wonderful time catching up. I think it's actually been a few years since we've seen each other, but we always pick up as if it were just yesterday. Now time has flown and we are packed and ready to get "on the road again", starting early tomorrow morning.

We have kept a marker trail of our journey on a big USA map -- it's looking pretty impressive so far... over 1500 miles.

Day 4 - Nebraska

I expected the Nebraska drive to be long and boring, but actually, with an early start and flat freeways, we cruised through quite quickly. It was really fun to drive straight from one city to another. We stopped at the Archway Museum in Kearney. Ft. Kearney is the halfway point between Boston and San Francisco - 1733 miles each way.

We crossed the Missouri river at Omaha, and are now in a small town in Iowa called Underwood, (pop. 688), where my friend Donna lives. She has a cornfield in her backyard, and a post office the size of a classroom. The town is so small and cute it reminds me of the little towns in Michigan my mom used to show us from when she grew up.

I will be tuning out for a couple of days while I catch up with my friend. On Thursday, we will leave on our next leg to Michigan to see Grandma and Grandpa and reunite with Mark.

So far the kids have traveled quite well, and even though it is only Day 4, we are beginning to contemplate other trips we might take together. (This thinking may change by the end of the month). For now, the kids are having fun playing in a real house with other kids and dogs. They have the best sunsets here and we caught a glimpse. We'll do that again tomorrow. It's pretty rare to actually be able to see the horizon from someone's backyard.

We're going to see if we can find some fireflies tonight to surprise our kids with. So long for now!

Day 3 - Colorado

Well, the camera worked! Here is the first picture of our entrance to the Rocky Mountains. Colorado is another beautiful state, and it was fun to drive through. My favorite town driving through the mountains was called Glennwood Springs. We saw river rafters, bikers, and just a few nice houses and buildings nestled among the hills.

We also drove through some of the big ski resorts, stopped at a dinosaur museum, and had our first experience with rain and fog in the mountains. That surprised me - I think I suspected it to be hot and dry the whole way.

The only disappointing thing with this leg of the journey is we got SUCH a late start and took SO long to get to Denver, that by the time we got there we decided to drive right through and now we are at a small inn in Fort Morgan, just east. It's so funny driving out of the mountains and experiencing the sudden change from constant hills and beauty to complete flat nothingness. Someone told me if I like the horizon I'll like this next leg of the journey. I told the kids there wouldn't be much to see so it could be a movie marathon.

Tonight, I really want to get my 8 hours of sleep, so will cut it short and tune in again soon!

Personality Styles and Vacations

Just before leaving on this trip, I spent two days in a Kiersey temperment style training course which was very interesting. The most interesting part for me is really "getting" that in this model, all people loosely fall into four basic temperments and that the key motivators for each temperment are extremely different. In general, we have:

Guardians - who pursue social respectability and security
Artisans - who pursue fun and want to make an impact
Idealists - who pursue personal growth and self-discovery
Rationals - who pursue knowledge and intellectual superiority

We all tend to think everyone gets the same "meaning" from life that we do. But they don't. They are completely driven by different things. I simplified the motivational drivers - so if you don't see yourself neatly in a category don't panic. (I'll write more about this model in my other blog - once I get back to thinking work).

So, you may have guessed that I'm an idealist, and I always am looking for deep insights about the meaning of life and all that stuff. And, up until now, I've assumed that most people seek these similar things and need to feel a sense of inner meaning and purpose to feel happy. But now I see that they don't.

This was eye-opening, and allowed me to appreciate those close to me and see them more in terms of what would give them a sense of personal fulfillment, instead of what would give me that same sense of fulfillment if I were in their shoes.

There are also many aspects of personality I don't believe this model covers and two of them are impacting me right now, on this trip. One of them is goal setting. Another is how the brain functions.

We had this great "rational" in our training group who had done a lot of reading on how the brain works and one insight he shared was why we need 8 hours of sleep. He said it takes that long for the brain to process everything that happened the following day and get it all organized and sorted. When we wake up fuzzy in the morning, it's because our brain hasn't had the chance to do all that sorting.

The first thing I noticed when I got up yesterday, after eight good hours of sleep, was how incredibly clear my head felt, and I remembered what he said. The first thing I noticed this morning when I got up after about 5 hours of sleep is that my brain is fuzzy, and I don't like that feeling as much as the clear brain. I've known a few brilliant people who thrive just fine on about 5 hours of sleep and I wonder if they've just trained their brains to sort faster.

The other thing I noticed this morning is my inner conflict. I want to get on the road and go go go, so I can make it to my friend Donna's house in Iowa and hang out with her for a couple of days before having to get on the road again. So I have goals of getting to point X by such and such time and point Y by another time, and I get anxious if I'm "behind schedule". But at the same time I keep telling myself I'm on vacation, and to relax.

So we'll see how that balance pans out.

Day 2 - Utah

Wow - Utah is beautiful. I have never seen such open space - mountains, canyons, amazing rock formations. I began to feel the like I could breathe again away from the crowds!

Tonight we are staying in a motel in Green River, Utah, which I think is about an hour or so east of the Colorado border. The drive has been amazing, and the kids did pretty well, as long as they had access to the DVD player and endless movies. Even they were amazed when we drove through Virgin Canyon, which I think was in Arizona near the Grand Canyon. Justin and Kaelyn both want to come back and live here, or at least show their dad. We stopped at several scenic view points along the way, and the kids were in "rock heaven". I don't know what compels Justin to want to pick up rocks and throw them, but he had fun doing that. Kaelyn, the adventurer, wanted to climb on the rocks and she always scares me because she thinks if the 20 year old tourists are up there climbing that means it's safe for her too. Luckily, I had the diving incident in my pocket to remind her that I have a right to be a neurotic mom and require that they stay well back from the cliffs.

We stopped in Cedar City, Utah for our afternoon break and went to this really cute park called the Discovery Park, which was designed by the families in the community. It had so many interesting things to climb in and on, that I would love to share a picture. Our camera never did start working, so I ended up buying a new one today, but that one wasn't charged yet. Do you know google images does not have a picture of that park? That's how small the towns are here - it's actually possible to find something interesting that someone has not taken a picture of yet and posted on the internet. Or at least not in a way that I could easily find it.

The picture at the top of this entry is one I found on the internet. Now, imagine seeing at least 50 spectacular views like this throughout the day almost everywhere you turn. I've never seen rocks this cool!

Tomorrow, we are off to Denver, and I believe we will be driving through the Rockies. Never been there either - so we are looking forward to the fun!

Day 1 - Nevada

Well, I'm glad I wasn't attached to any pre-conceived notions about how this trip would go, because our Lake Mead leg didn't turn out anything like I had hoped. But it wasn't too bad either.

I invited Mark to come with us since it was the weekend, and the idea was we'd leave super early Saturday morning, play on the lake all day and go our separate ways Sunday morning. He was torn at first, but then decided to by a new bimini (cover) for his boat so we could have shade on the lake, and decided it would be fun.

I hadn't given myself much time to pack on Friday since I had been in a training all day, and even though I had a fairly thorough list and most of the clothes washed, things took much longer than I expected, and before we knew it we were still trying to do last minute stuff at 10pm when we were planning on getting up around 4am. So at some point I had to let go of my dream of leaving a perfectly complete to do list, a perfectly clean and organized house, and trust Mark to take care of the loose ends when he returns after the weekend.

The drive itself wasn't too bad, and I figured it would be an easy start for the kids. Only about 4-5 hours the first day, each of them in a different vehicle with the entire back seat to stretch out in. But when you took into consideration the slower drive with the boat, a few extra stops for bathroom breaks, and not knowing exactly where we were going when we got to the lake, it was already after noon before we managed to get the boat into the water.

And then we had one little surprise after another. The boat ramp was shallow, the parking was on gravel with very deep pits and potholes, the temperature was well over 100 degrees, the wind was strong and gusty, the marina was crowded and didn't rent the inner tubes we had wanted, our fruit and some snacks didn't handle the heat, and neither did we. I was afraid the kids were getting heat stroke and kept trying to get them to sip water. Kaelyn started getting sea sick, and by the time I got sunscreen on everyone, our faces at least were already burned.

Finally we got the boat cover up, which gave us a little shade, and we got out on the open water. Since we were so hot, we went to find a cove immediately so we could swim. It was really nice getting into the cold water and it looked like everyone was going to have fun, but then the headaches hit, and then I got seasick. Funny thing is - I had brought wristbands for me and Kaelyn just in case we needed them to drive through the mountains, but it never occured to me that we would need them on the lake, and I didn't bring them onto the boat. We always take them with us when we go out on the ocean, but since I've never gotten sick on a lake - even a rough one, it was the last thing I thought of here.

Instead of the calm, peaceful, desert lake I had imagined, we were contantly being hit with waves or wind from all sides. And no matter how much we drank, the sun found a way to dehydrate us. The mountains around the lake didn't look as beautiful as I'd expected. The one thing I noticed was how low the water was compared to the water lines on the land. It kind of gave me the feeling that the poor lake was evaporating to death. I had planned to just relax on the boat and notice the landscape, but we just kept getting tossed around. Finally, after it became apparent that I wasn't going to get better until I could lay down in a cool, still place for an hour or so, we finally decided to leave the lake and find a hotel. Thankfully, we had decided not to camp, because pulling together all that extra equipment would have taken too much time. And we wouldn't have done it anyway. The car registered 130 degrees when we finally left. Ugg!

Despite all of this, there were lots of nice things that happened. Like the fact that the hotel we had been thinking of staying at simply showed up on the road within minutes of leaving the marina. It had a beautiful view of the lake, and free wireless internet! After getting off the churning water, it only took me about an hour to recover, and we were all showered and on our way to dinner. We got to see the Las Vegas skyline on the way back, and now everyone is asleep. But me.

Tomorrow, our goal is to reach Grand Junction, Colorado. If we could make it all the way to Denver that would be really awesome. But I've scrapped the idea of making an early start. Although I want to get to my friend Donna's in Iowa by early Tuesday, the whole point of this trip was NOT to stress out. And so far, it's been kind of stressful. So we're just going to wake up when we wake up and get ready when we get ready, and go when we go.

By the way, another surprise for us today was the camera not working. It had worked fine the prior night, but when I got the kids all set up to take our first picture, it kept trying to get itself oriented, and asking us to turn the power on and off again. Neither Mark nor I could figure out what was going on. So there will be no pictures for our first day. I'm recharging the battery as we speak, so perhaps that will do the trick and we'll have some pics by tomorrow.

My goal tomorrow will be to divide the trip into 2-3 hour segments and see if we can have fun with it.