I wish we were already gone

---

When planning this trip, I thought working Monday and Tuesday made sense. Leaving as soon as possible after work and driving 24 hours made sense. What on earth was I thinking? (Jeff just helpfully suggested a different schedule would be nice.) It's not that I don't mostly enjoy what I do, but I want to be gone. Yesterday it was 70+ here and sunny. Today's good, too, but tomorrow it won't get above 50 and it's supposed to rain. We should be gone. But we're not.

So instead, I'm exploring travelblog.org. Some of the posts are really interesting and people are going places Jeff & I will most likely never see. This blog will be tame in comparison. That's okay. This is for our families to see our travel photos without having to slog through my scrapbooks.

This trip will be Jeff's & my fourth to Arizona, Liam's second and Cole's first. Neither boy has been in New Mexico, although Jeff & I have. They've both been in Texas with us once (when we watched Aaron Rodgers show he was ready), and the two of us before them drove through on Rt 66.

Our first trip (to Arizona) was in 2002, a timeshare vacation in Flagstaff. That was probably our first spoke vacation (stay at one place and do day trips out). We visited the Desert Botanical Garden with Jeff's family, Meteor Crater, the Grand Canyon, Canyon de Chelly, Jerome and Sedona.

Our second was a drive through on Route 66 in 2004, just before Liam. It was crazy, but a lot of fun. We focused on the nearby National Park Service (NPS) sites, including Petrified Forest, Wupatki, Sunset Crater and Walnut Canyon. It was 100 degrees, but we did the climb down and up anyway. At the time, I thought we were nuts, but I'm glad to have done it. I guess that's the way life is. I'd love to be 20 lbs lighter, but I don't want to diet or exercise. I'd like to be able to skate, but I don't like falling on my butt trying to learn.

Our third trip, in 2005, was for a conference in Tucson. We stayed at Lowe's Ventana Canyon Resort which was spectacular (well worth a stay if someone else is footing your bill). We did all of the NPS sites south of and including Tonto National Monument (where we walked the 1/2 mile up in 99 degree heat. Honestly, could we go in January, maybe). We also went to the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum (zoo), the Titan Missile Museum and Kitt Peak National Observatory.

This trip is also for a conference, so we won't do much. The boys will stay at the hotel and play Wii and watch the complementary goldfish while I learn as much as possible about complementary and alternative medicine.

---

Comments

[Home and Away]

I just ran across your blog...
We have been members of Travelblog.org for about the same time so I'm glad to have made the connection. I can tell that you are passionate travelers and love to take your kids everywhere just as my wife and I did/do. I just hope that someday you will try foreign countries. I hope our travels will inspire you. Let me know if you need any advice!

[kengelha]

We finally did!
I didn't blog it b/c I didn't want to pay for access, but we did finally get out of the country. It was a cruise, which is not the same as actually flying to another country and doing what we want, but it was a start. We went to Cozumel, Belize, Isla Roatan and Grand Cayman. We met people who had done the same cruise half a dozen times, but that sounds boring. Our youngest wants to go to London, so we may be looking at that as our next big trip. Who knows?

[Home and Away]

Cruisers are a different breed of traveler...
if you can call them that. We only cruise where it is difficult to see any other way...Alaska Inside Passage and the South Pacific islands. We will likely do the Caribbean, but only to achieve my goal of traveling to 100 countries...your cruise went to four countries...I'm at 74. Anyway, London is a perfect destination for a real out of country experience...not too different, but full of everything. It was one of our favorite destinations when we lived in Europe...Rome being #1. Go for it!