Greetings from Missouri!

We arrived in Missouri at about 1:30 yesterday afternoon (at the time we thought it was 2:30 and it wasn't until about 7:30 that night that we realized we were now in the central time zone.)  The drive was 892 miles and took us a little over 14 hours.  Besides a 20 minute stop for a sit down breakfast at Kentucky's "Big Boy" restaurant the only other times we stopped were for the 3 gas fills ups we needed.

We're staying with Jonathan's cousins Charan and Christa and their two kids Micah and Marissah.  Yesterday was Marissah's ninth birthday so last night we got to celebrate her special day with a party at her grandmother's house.  It was a great night relaxing with their family and getting to see Marissah's face when she opened her new trampoline and pink, sparkly bike.  The trampoline was an especially big treat because her old one was destroyed by a tree during the big storms last week.  And the bratwurst, bean salad and grilled corn were such a nice treat after our lunch of pretzels!

Today we're off to see the Gateway Arch and the Anheuser-Busch Factory!

And We're Off!

See you in Missouri!

Getting Ready

Getting Ready, a set on Flickr.

9 Hours to Go..

For the past two days we've been busy with last minute shopping trips, packing the van, fine-tuning the program and webcam we're using to make a time lapse video of the drive, ironing all our clothes before shoving them back into the suitcase (that would be Kate..) and some non-trip related chores such as mowing the lawn and cleaning out the basement.  We also managed to make our first call to AAA before even starting our drive!  While loading the van yesterday we left the doors open for too long and the battery died.  Luckily we realized this last night and we called AAA at 9 this morning and had the van jump-started and running by 9:30!  Let's hope this early visit does not prove to be a bad omen.

We thought we would let you all know our itinerary in hopes that we'll get some suggestions of things to see along the way.

5/29          Depart from Alexandria, VA
5/30-5/31  St. Louis, MO
6/1-6/2      Denver, CO
6/3-6/4      Gunnison, CO (home of the "Black Canyon")
6/4-6/5      Mexican Hat, UT (Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park)
6/6-6/7      North Rim, AZ (Camping in the Grand Canyon)
6/7-6/9      Las Vegas, NV
6/9-6/12    San Francisco, CA
6/13-6/14  Crescent City, CA (Redwood National Park)
6/14-6/16  Siuslaw National Forest, OR
6/17-6/20  Ferndale, WA
6/21-6/22  Yellowstone, WY
6/22-6/23  Cheyenne, WY
6/23-6/24  Omaha, NE
6/24-6/25  Chicago, IL
6/25-6/27  Grand Rapids, MI
6/27-7/1    Hamlin, NY
7/1-7/5      Thomaston, ME

We plan to head out around 8 or 9 tonight.  We have a 14 hour drive to St. Louis so we're hoping a night drive will cut out the majority of Memorial Day traffic.

2 Days Out!

Here we are!  Two days before embarking on our huge journey!  To fill in those who may be out of the loop Jonathan and Kate will be making a 5-week, approximately 9,000-mile trip around the country in a minivan.  As Kate has finished her Master’s degree and Jonathan will be starting medical school in August we decided to do something drastic before we have to start our “adult” lives of responsibility and no more summer vacations. 

The entire two-year span of our relationship has been spent long-distance.  Every other weekend of the last two years either Jonathan drove to see Kate in Columbia, SC or Kate made the opposite 4 hour trip to visit Jonathan in Blacksburg, VA.  So driving is nothing new for us.  The big clincher of this trip is that we will be making the drive together.  We have never spent more than a week together at any one time so five weeks in a minivan is sure to be a true test.  We anticipate this will bring it’s share of challenges but are optimistic that we will truly enjoy getting to know each other more deeply through conversations that are not separated by cell phone waves.

We have spent the last few months hammering out all the trip details and gathering supplies while both working 12+ hour days, Kate in the ER and Jonathan with his dad’s Company, Peninsula Drywall, in order to fund this beast.  We have a created a tentative itinerary and made many housing arrangements but are leaving much everything else unplanned.  Both being Type A most everything in our life has been over planned.  We’re looking forward to just hitting the road head on with no expectations and the only goal being to enjoy the ride!

Though we are making this trip alone, it could in no way have been possible without the love and support of so many of our friends and family members:  Jonathan’s parents lending us their van (including funding its pre-trip tune-up and four new tires), Kate’s mom taking us to COSTCO to stock up on a five-week supply of granola and peanut butter, Kate’s dad lending us his fancy camera, Jonathan’s Grandmama agreeing to be our Weather Expert and alert us to any tornadoes we may need to dodge, the many people opening their homes along the way as reprieve from our pallet in the back of the minivan and the countless monetary donations that will go directly towards funding our anticipated $2000 gas bill.  And perhaps the greatest piece of support will be coming from all of you-following our blog and sharing in what we anticipate to be an amazing journey.  We hope to update you every day-to let you know where we are, what we’ve done, who we’ve seen.

So thank you, thank you everyone!  We are so blessed to have this amazing opportunity and to be able to share it with all of you.