We are planning our summer road trip. The plan is to go from home, Hopkinton, New Hampshire, to Colorado in four days. Then we will camp for a week with my dad (and possibly his partner, Gale, she's still deciding) and then head to Michigan to visit our friends. \240After that we will stop and see my cousin's family as well as her parents before heading home.

Because of COVID, we wanted to make sure we didn't have to use public restrooms or hotels (for the next two years...) we purchased a large, class A motorhome for our family.

We are hoping to get through the first two weeks of our trip without having to stop for anything but gas. That means a lot of planning, a lot of groceries, and a mountain of amazon packages arriving today.

So far we have a five column packing spreadsheet and an entire room full of stuff that needs to be packed. \240The kids are excited but there's a lot to do!

T-minus-one-day Until we takeoff for our adventure. We spent the last two evenings getting the motorhome outfitted and totally loaded up for our trip.

This meant several Amazon packages, an enormous grocery delivery, and lots of hours spent getting things outfitted just right. Thanks to careful measuring we were able to install several organizational items that will help keep me sane. It turns out that motorhome cabinets are notoriously stupidly designed to be deep and unuseful. So we got shelving, drawers, and organizers. I think we’re ready to go!

And we are off!

477 miles driven

Camped at Lake Erie state park in New York

First day a success! We took off at about 8 and let the kids stay in their pajamas and have their breakfast in the motorhome, which they thought was just about the coolest thing ever.

We got a little nervous when Cecilia asked, before we had even crossed into Vermont, \240how many more hours we had to go. Luckily we didn’t hear that very frequently for the \240rest of the drive.

Just before we left Vermont we realized Maribel had left her blanket at home. Luckily, it wasn’t the *really* important blanket. But it meant she had no covers. We were able to find a Walmart and run in quickly, with a mask. Hopefully that’s the last stop we will have to make on this trip.

The kids spent most of the first part of the day coloring and playing with stickers.

Morning walk to the lake before we take off.

Kid entry - Cecilia, age 5

So far, what is your favorite thing in the motorhome: “that my bunk is right in front of the TV.”

What did you like about Lake Erie camping: “ummmmmmm THE BEACH. It had waves that I could jump over and rocks that I could collect.”

What do you think is going to be the most fun about this trip: “getting down the bikes (from the back of the motorhome) and seeing grandpa.”

Kid entry - Daniel, age 7

What do you like about riding in the motorhome: “that I get my tablet.”

Why was your favorite part of Lake Erie: The Paw Parrol scavenger hunt.”

What are you looking forward to for the rest of the trip: “”seeing grandpa and auntie gale”

Things we learned yesterday:

1. 500 miles is too many in one day if you are trying to get through cities. We knew this was to be our longest push but traffic in Indianapolis added an hour so we didn’t get in until about 6, not enough time to go swimming, which the kids really wanted to do because it was HOT and humid. They settled for riding their bikes around the campground, which they hadn’t been able to do in Erie, and they love because campgrounds are so flat. “Mama, We should move to a campground so we don’t live on such a big hill.” -Daniel

2. Showers for five peoplel will use 3/4 of a tank of water. If that’s all you have, and your camping with only electrical hook up, the last showerer (Mama...) will end up with a sponge bath from the faucet. \240Next time, probably worth getting the full hook up even if you think you won’t need it.

3. If you rush around in the morning and try to plug the coffee maker and toaster in at the same time to the same kitchen outlet you will blow the fuse and end up making your coffee in the bathroom and waffles in the microwave. #firstworldproblems I know...

We stayed last night at LIeber State recreation area in Indiana. It was a very nice campground and relatively empty even though the Rangers told us at check-in they expected to be totally full that weekend. If I lived in Indiana I would come to this place ALL THE TIME. It was a beautiful lush, shady oasis in the middle of flat cornfields. The campgrounds had lots of space between each campsite, which reminded me of some of the better campgrounds I’ve stayed at in California. Also made me realize how tight and cramped the New England campgrounds really are.. There was lots of space and our campsite was on the end of a row so we had a big grassy area next to us. Since we had had a very long day on the road the kids had a great time running around and playing on that grassy area when we arrived.

Unfortunately, the swim beach was a mile and a half walk away and we just couldn’t fit that in before dinner. The nine-ager (Maribel) sulked about that for a bit but the others were thrilled to zoom around on their bikes.

Luckily, dinner was super easy thanks to my trusty instant pot. I simply warmed up a soup that I had brought frozen and we had dinner in about 15 minutes. A certain naysayer had said I shouldn’t bring that instant pot but it sure came in handy last night! I suspect it will continue to prove its worth...

After dinner we took a really nice walk around the campground and the kids caught fireflies. I wonder if Fire flies in Indiana are a slightly different variety because they were easy for the kids to catch and they can never catch them Hampshire. It was amazing how much fun they had catching lightning bugs, naming them, and then letting them go. Many didn’t survive Vivian.

Since we had had such a long day in the car I let Maribel stay up late and come for my walk with me in the evening. We walked all around the campground, which is sizable, and saw a very nice sunset.

The story of this flag...

During our trial run camping weekend, two weeks before we left for our big trip, we had a kind of scary experience. The kids love riding their bikes around, and especially Daniel and CiCi can zoom around in circles for hours.

One day we had been out walking all together and somehow Cecilia had missed stopping at the motorhome. She kept riding and pulled into a campsite about three away from us in tears, saying she was lost. We found her in about two minutes but she explained that all the campers looked exactly the same to her. She couldn’t tell our motorhome from anybody else’s.

Several people have a little flags outside their sites with sayings on them and I wondered if this wasn’t the reason. So I let Maribel pick out a flag that the kids would all recognize when they were riding their bikes. \240Now her job is to set it up every time we land at the campsite. So when they ride their bikes they always look for the cat flag.

Things we learned today:

1. 400 miles is WAY BETTER to do in a day \240500. This may seem obvious but it has seemed to be those last 2.5 hours which get really tough so not having them was a whole different experience.

2. The full hookup is, indeed, worth it! Long, luxurious showers....

3. They are not doing a great job with social distancing in Missouri, if the “foam party” that is happening currently at this campground is any indication.

We actually slept in a bit this morning and didn’t wake up until 6:30! After a quick stop at the campground entrance to refill our tanks, we were on our way. Today was a short day, just under 400 miles, and it made a huge difference. We arrived at our campground just after two, so we felt like we had an entire afternoon stretched out before us. We were at a KOA campground that had many fun things for the kids to do.

We had seen on the website that they had a “mining slough” and so when I checked us in I saw they were selling bags of sand with either small or large gems, or fossils, in them. I bought a bag of each.

We quickly got camp set up and it was HHHOOOTTT. The “feels like” temperature was over 100 with humidity so we decided to visit the pool first. After yesterday the kids were really happy to get to swim and there were barely any other people in the pool so it was easy to stay socialy distant.

After about an hour and a half of swimming they decided they wanted to try the mining slough.

It was a HUGE hit and I worry we won’t be able to top that experience. (Did Missouri even really have mining... something to google later...)

We let each child have a pour from each bag so they all got small and large gemstones, as well as fossils. There was an identification chart nearby and they had a great time looking through their bags and trying to determine what they had found.

You can see the bags in Pete’s hands in this picture. The nice thing was that everyone found lots of treasures!

Even when we went back to our campsite, those bags of gems and fossils kept them busy for about an hour and would have done so for longer if it hadn’t been dinner time.

We had dinner and then got ice cream from the camp store before getting everybody ready for bed.

We have another long day tomorrow but are looking forward to seeing my dad in Colorado the next day. Onward!

These kiddos are TROOPERS!

We knew today was our longest day: 499 miles was what we had planned. But when we got to the town we intended to stay in, Seibert, a tiny town East of Denver, \240we realized it was not a great location. It was less than a truck stop and the skies were about to thunderstorm. The time change also meant that it was about 3:00 and the kids had done great for the whole day so we felt like we could push on.

This was Seibert, it had cactus growing wild, which seemed like the main attraction....

We made it!

We got up and out pretty early this morning as we knew it was a short day and we were ready to be settled somewhere for a while.

The drive over the Rocky Mountains was \240spectacular. Just amazing scenery.

These pictures, that Daniel took while we drove, just don’t do it justice!

Today was the second of two 100 degree days we are expecting here in Colorado. After realizing the section of the Colorado river at the campground was a little too fast to let the kids free swim in we did some research and booked a 2.5 - 3 hour river float in an inflatable raft.

The plan was to get there for about 9:30am. This morning, however, the kids were dying to explore the campground and wanted to do a ore-breakfast bike ride. Pete had several fires at work so was up at 6am on conference calls so I took them. They found a sandy area on the banks of the river whrre the sand was super soft and played for about an hour. I drank my coffee and watched them play, it was pretty nice.

The Bataan death paddle....

What we learned today: if you call a river rafting place to inquire about the “2.5 hour morning river float” experience listed on their website, make sure you also ask what happens if the wind is blowing so hard up river that you actually float backwards? You should also ask what happens if you realize \240that after 3 hours you have only managed, with great effort, to get 2 of 8 miles down the river. Will they have a speed boat to come rescue you? Or can they pick you up at a closer boat ramp?

Because when the answer is “no, you are just going to have to make it the 8-miles” and your pretty-tough 75-year-old dad is starting to get tired at the same time as your 20-month old starts screaming because she needs a nap and you expected to be done, you will not be happy.

As you might imagine from reading this today we planned to do a 2 1/2 our river float down the Colorado River. We got in with high expectations for a leisurely, beautiful, wildlife-filled once-in-a-lifetime adventure.

It was once in a lifetime, for sure...

We realized after about two hours that the wind was so strong blowing up river that we were having to paddle pretty hard to move at all. This was a real problem because only about 3/7 People in our raft were actually helpful paddlers. There was another boat on the river with a guide who had a strong pair of oars with which he easily moved his group down the river. We had thought that a self-guided “float” would be preferable because of social distancing, but about halfway through the trip we started to question that decision…

We stop for a rest while Vivian was freaking out about not having her nap and called the rafting company. They said there was nothing they could do to help us and that we basically had to keep paddling. At that point we begin alternating between Pete or me getting out of the boat and pulling it, while wading in the water, because the wind was so strong that paddling wasn’t getting us anywhere. Then when the current would pick us up the person who was pulling with jump in and ride for a little way.

Thankfully, the kids actually did really well and stopped squabbling with each other when they realized they were actually needed to help. It was beautiful but was much longer and more rigorous than any of us expected.

I felt particularly bad about this because I have kind of a history of taking my dad on long, arduous journeys without meaning to.. One time when he was visiting us in New Hampshire we accidentally took him on a much longer hike than he was ready for and today was like that.

It was beautiful, And I was very proud of the kids for rallying like they did. They all helped to paddle, and even C and Vivian were pretty happy as we completed the experience. I do think though that we will all be sore tomorrow...

All in all, the 2.5 hour “float” took us 5 hours of HARD paddling and wading....

The Bataan death paddle....

What we learned today: if you call a river rafting place to inquire about the “2.5 hour morning river float” experience listed on their website, make sure you also ask what happens if the wind is blowing so hard up river that you actually float backwards? You should also ask what happens if you realize that after 3 hours you have only managed, with great effort, to get 2 of 8 miles down the river. Will they have a speed boat to come rescue you? Or can they pick you up at a closer boat ramp?

Because when the answer is “no, you are just going to have to make it the 8-miles” and your pretty-tough 75-year-old dad is starting to get tired at the same time as your 20-month old starts screaming because she needs a nap and you expected to be done, you will not be happy.

As you might imagine from reading this today we planned to do a 2 1/2 our river float down the Colorado River. We got in with high expectations for a leisurely, beautiful, wildlife-filled once-in-a-lifetime adventure.

It was once in a lifetime, for sure...

We realized after about two hours that the wind was so strong blowing up river that we were having to paddle pretty hard to move at all. This was a real problem because only about 3/7 People in our raft were actually helpful paddlers. There was another boat on the river with a guide who had a strong pair of oars with which he easily moved his group down the river. We had thought that a self-guided “float” would be preferable because of social distancing, but about halfway through the trip we started to question that decision…

We stop for a rest while Vivian was freaking out about not having her nap and called the rafting company. They said there was nothing they could do to help us and that we basically had to keep paddling. At that point we begin alternating between Pete or me getting out of the boat and pulling it, while wading in the water, because the wind was so strong that paddling wasn’t getting us anywhere. Then when the current would pick us up the person who was pulling with jump in and ride for a little way.

Thankfully, the kids actually did really well and stopped squabbling with each other when they realized they were actually needed to help. It was beautiful but was much longer and more rigorous than any of us expected.

I felt particularly bad about this because I have kind of a history of taking my dad on long, arduous journeys without meaning to.. One time when he was visiting us in New Hampshire we accidentally took him on a much longer hike than he was ready for and today was like that.

It was beautiful, And I was very proud of the kids for rallying like they did. They all helped to paddle, and even C and Vivian were pretty happy as we completed the experience. I do think though that we will all be sore tomorrow...

All in all, the 2.5 hour “float” took us 5 hours of HARD paddling and wading....

We made it back to the campground and had an easy dinner of chili and leftovers from the last two nights. We were all pretty beat from the rafting trip but it was absolutely gorgeous, cooler weather so pete took the the kids for a bike ride along the river walk and my dad and I walked. The light here in the evenings is just spectacular and I can see how during slightly cooler seasons this would be an absolutely perfect destination.

We started and ended the day fishing!

After our adventure yesterday we wanted to have a relaxing last day in Colorado. The kids also really wanted to fish and were excited to have grandpa, a master fisherman, show them how. So first thing this morning we went out with poles and fished for a while.

Back on the road...

Today we left Colorado to head East. We had a truly wonderful visit with grandpa and were all very, very sad to leave. We talked about doing it again perhaps over Thanksgiving, when the weather would be cooler.

We spent the morning packing up and were all ready to go at about 9. We took the kids to the playground to let them run off some energy and they all had a great time.

The day was heating up so we went back and departed at about 11. We went over the Rockies again and they were spectacular, again.

There was quite a bit of traffic heading the other direction out of Denver. We also saw several white water rafting tours going on the river (all of which looked like they had significant current... Ahem...) so i wondered \240whether the tourism industry in Colorado was actually doing ok. Interesting.

Time is a funny thing....

We got up at 5:30 this morning to push on and as we drove down interstate 80 through Nebraska we realized the last time we were on this stretch of road was 2 weeks after our wedding. We were driving cross country to get Pete’s sports car to Vermont to our two bedroom condo where Pete would study for the bar while I worked for World Learning. There was so little cell service across the country that we had to call my mom each day to have her make our hotel reservations.

If you had told me then that the next time I would be on this road we would be barreling along in a 20,000 pound motorhome while I made toast for four kids during a global pandemic I would not have believed you.....

Kid entry: Maribel

Age: 9 1/2 (TODAY IS HER HALF BIRTHDAY!)

What have you liked best that we have done so far on our trip: S’mores and fishing.

Which place that we’ve been to have you found the most interesting: Colorado because we had a good view of the rocks while we were camping.

When was a time when you felt happy: when we finished the river rafting because it was a tough thing and we had to work really hard to get there.

What’s your favorite animal that you have seen: Ginger the cat because he was really cute and he liked hanging out by our motorhome.

Kid entry: Cici

Age 5

What is your favorite thing that we did in Colorado? River rafting because I liked the lunch we had on the river.

(Maribel added: I liked the animals, especially the weasel.)

What has been your favorite thing to do while driving: the cat Gingersnap bit not when he scratched me in the face.

Tell me something else that has been fun about this trip: ice cream!

Kid entry: Vivian

Age 1

Vivi, do you like the ice cream we got tonight? (Nods head)

What animals do you like? Birds

Miles driven: 614, 9 hours

Long day on the road today. We both have to work Monday so we are hoping to make it to Michigan tomorrow. We ended up leaving early and then driving until about 8 PM.

On our way out we realize we were driving past the Nebraska golden spike train yard. It was closed at the time we went but is the largest Trainyard in the country. Something like 10,000 trains go through it every day. Even though it was closed we got to see some pretty neat trains.

Settled in in Michigan

Wenarrived at our wonderful friends, Analise and Doug’s house on Sunday and have had an terrific week!

Analise offered to watch our kids while we worked so we were able to stay here with them for an extended visit. This is truly amazing because they have FIVE kids of their own. We became good friends with them in New Hampshire before they moved to Michigan and it was so awesome to pick up where we left off. Our kids also LOVE them and their kids so they have been one super happy pack all week!

I stopped posting daily because we were in the rhythm of work but we have had wonderful walks, late night chats and wonderful food (Analise is an amazing cook!)

More to come as we head into a fun weekend!

Lake Michigan boating!

Today we spent the morning on Lake Michigan with our friends. We rented a 250 hp pontoon boat and a large tube.

We got up early and we’re out on the lake by 9 AM. The kids had an absolutely terrific time tubing all morning. It was a little chilly but that did not deter them from spending the entire time bouncing around in the waves.

It was absolutely beautiful. We came back and the kids watched a movie while the adults rested. I went for a beautiful run on the quiet dirt roads around here. It was really great.

These kids are having a blast. And I love this huge baby! ❤️

Great relaxed Sunday here in Michigan. We did some cleaning chores in the morning and then I took Viv on a 10 mile bike ride on Ada’s terrific bike trails. It was a beautiful ride ost horse farms and parks.

On the road again....

Today we departed the Ebaugh’s house After 10 wonderful days. Because of COVID and quarantining we didn’t actually “go” anywhere but it was actually better spending the time at their house. The kids could play freely for hours together without a tight schedule. They rode bikes and scooters, played with animals, built forts and even wrote picture books together. We are so lucky to have such amazing friends. Annelise watched our kids while Pete and I worked during the weekdays. It was so generous of her. It meant that she had nine kids during each day and she handled it all with grace and ease. I don’t know how she does it.

We were very sad to leave them this morning as we had established such a nice rhythm. We really hope they come out to visit us in New Hampshire soon! We are really trying to get them to move in with us and we can have a two family compound. It would be especially convenient this year because Analise could teach all the kids if they don’t go back to school!

Last night we had a campfire and s’more‘s to celebrate our time together. The kids had a wonderful time and we will miss them very much!

Ohhhh Ohio!

We spent the last two days in Ohio with family. We visited my aunt Lynne and uncle Alan’s. My cousin, Brooke and her husband, Matt came up from Louisville with their two kids. We are lucky to have been able to spend quite a bit of time with them all in the last few years and so we and our kids are very close to them. We had a wonderful time.

Lynne always does a terrific job planning and so we always feel welcome. The first night we had a great dinner of lasagna and salad and the kids played.

Miles driven: 382

Westfield, NY: overnight at the Westfield Lake Erie KOA.

We knew it would take us two days to get home so we decided to do the short day today so we could spend more time with \240family in Ohio.

We stopped at Lake Erie at about 5 PM and went for a nice walk through a little park. The lake was beautifu. There were little trails, a bridge through the woods, but no swimming beach and a perilous drop to the shale shelf on the waters edge.