Sunday, May 6, 2012

Cross-Country Tour

Saturday afternoon we embarked for our cross-country tour through the southern United States. Our first few nights were spent at a quaint bed-and-breakfast in Cedar City, Utah (for free!), where we have enjoyed a king-sized bed, a shower with not one, not two, but three shower heads (our dream come true, as we love family showers), and lovely jaunts around the neighborhood. Last night we ate delicious Mexican food at a local place in celebration of Cinco de Mayo. All in all, it's been a pleasant beginning to our road trip, as I anticipate many sleepless nights ahead (camping with two children guarantees that, but I think the family bonding experience and teaching our children about the importance of nature in our lives outweighs the rough sleeping arrangements).

So far, we have driven about three hours, and the kids slept great through it. About an hour outside of Cedar City, there was a rest stop where we had to stop because our belongings were flying off our car (scary, annoying but not that bad in the end, though I thought Tim was going to die when he had to run back and retrieve our blanket from the middle of a highway where cars were whizzing past at 90 mph). We ended up just putting everything in our car as our improvised bungee-cord-tarp set-up failed us, which makes for a tight fit and impossibility of seeing out the rear.

We are using our new GPS, and it tells us the eco-friendliness of our driving, which is a fun feature (it rates you based on speed, if you're on the highway, starting and stopping, fast acceleration). According to fuel.gov or something like that, fuel economy drastically decreases above 60 mph, so we're aiming for that speed all the way across the country, so it probably will even take us longer than the ordinary traveler.

I'm so excited for some of these campgrounds we are staying at, especially when we get in the southeast and they are on lakes in beautiful forests and we can go swimming.

Next few stops: Zion National Forest, Coral Pink Sand Dunes, Grand Canyon.

2 comments:

  1. Speaking of Tim dying, I was thinking the other day that you two should get life insurance, now that you have two kids. And wills. Insurance is cheap through USAA. You could probably get $100K on each of your for $10-15 a month each. I have $250k on me and we have lots on Christopher.

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