A year of planning for the perfect family trip!
There's another thread discussing the cycle of life that hits most of us right in the gut. I'm a 43 year old husband and father of two 8 year old boys. We've got the same dreams as many of you, to make memories with our families in the RV. I'm all too aware of how fast the kids are growing and recognize that my window of making these dreams a reality is at most about 8-9 years longer.
We've spent our lives to this point being as "wise" as we can to prepare for the future. However, this philospohy of "windows" that are open for short periods has become real. You either "DO" something like this at a certain age, or it doesn't get done.
In the last two years, I've gone back to school and am making a career change. I'm going to be a middle school teacher. There were many reasons for the change, one of which is freeing up summers for family time. Realistically, we should be able to a trip each summer that puts us on the road for weeks at a time. I think we would have a maximum time of 6 weeks, but that might change.
We live in South Carolina and would like to have at least two of these trips. A southwest and a northwest one. We'd like the first one to be the southwest trip. I have been working on it on google maps and thought why not get the input of the EXPERTS! :)
This thread is meant to be a tool for me to use over the next year. It will be busy at times and at times be shelved. If any of you are willing to work through this with me through the next year, please join in. Your experiences travelling the country would be so valuable.
There's got to be a better way to collaborate with google maps, but I can't figure it out. It's not exactly user friendly. So, for now, here's a link and a quick screensnap of what I've got in mind so far.
https://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msid=211628587478009914116.0004de6c8e9b3ecd4fb1b&msa=0&ll=37.788081,-89.384766&spn=27.533419,62.226563&iwloc=0004de6d42d43368b1d88
We aren't very interested in visiting urban areas, so I basically tried to tie together as many National Parks as I could. However, I know nothing about the roads themselves. I don't want to drive randomly, but certainly would prefer to be on a known scenic road rather than an interstate.
**** I'VE USED UP ALL MY TIME THIS MORNING TO POST, BUT WILL FINISH THIS THOUGHT LATER TODAY
We've spent our lives to this point being as "wise" as we can to prepare for the future. However, this philospohy of "windows" that are open for short periods has become real. You either "DO" something like this at a certain age, or it doesn't get done.
In the last two years, I've gone back to school and am making a career change. I'm going to be a middle school teacher. There were many reasons for the change, one of which is freeing up summers for family time. Realistically, we should be able to a trip each summer that puts us on the road for weeks at a time. I think we would have a maximum time of 6 weeks, but that might change.
We live in South Carolina and would like to have at least two of these trips. A southwest and a northwest one. We'd like the first one to be the southwest trip. I have been working on it on google maps and thought why not get the input of the EXPERTS! :)
This thread is meant to be a tool for me to use over the next year. It will be busy at times and at times be shelved. If any of you are willing to work through this with me through the next year, please join in. Your experiences travelling the country would be so valuable.
There's got to be a better way to collaborate with google maps, but I can't figure it out. It's not exactly user friendly. So, for now, here's a link and a quick screensnap of what I've got in mind so far.
https://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msid=211628587478009914116.0004de6c8e9b3ecd4fb1b&msa=0&ll=37.788081,-89.384766&spn=27.533419,62.226563&iwloc=0004de6d42d43368b1d88
We aren't very interested in visiting urban areas, so I basically tried to tie together as many National Parks as I could. However, I know nothing about the roads themselves. I don't want to drive randomly, but certainly would prefer to be on a known scenic road rather than an interstate.
**** I'VE USED UP ALL MY TIME THIS MORNING TO POST, BUT WILL FINISH THIS THOUGHT LATER TODAY
