Summer adventure 2015--the plan and the beginning

For almost a year, we've been planning a big trip for the summer this year.  It started as a trip to Ohio for a couple weeks to visit Jay's family and our friends from when we lived there.  Then my father's side of the family planned a reunion in Arkansas for July, so we thought, "Arkansas is on the way back from Ohio!  We can add that on!"  During Spring Break, Rachel was here and said that we should come visit her too.  At the time, we all kind of laughed, but after some research and looking at maps, we decided to tack that on as well.  So we ended up with a 4 week trip, covering 15 states and almost 5000 miles.

We were scheduled to leave on Wednesday, June 17.  Jay took off June 15 and 16 so he could help clean up the car, finish packing, and we could all be ready to go.  On Sunday, June 14, the news started reporting a disturbance in the Gulf of Mexico that was predicted to turn into a tropical storm.  We spent Sunday afternoon and evening watching the news to see what the weather was going to do, since we didn't want to drive out in a tropical storm!  We finally decided to stick with our original plan and we would see what happened with the weather.  If we had to, we could put off leaving for an extra day, or leave on Tuesday instead of Wednesday if it looked like it would be worse later in the week.

He was completely soaked by the time
the van was clean.

Monday morning, Jay started washing the van.  It was clear and sunny when he started, but the rain started moving in as he progressed.  We offered to bring him some shampoo so he could just take a shower while he was at it, but he declined.  He did get the car clean (and probably used less water than otherwise!) and pulled it into the garage to wax it.

The van fit in the garage... just barely.

Meanwhile, the kids and I were busy packing and organizing inside.  Packing 6 people for a month is like mobilizing a small army!

The disturbance in the Gulf did turn into Tropical Storm Bill, but otherwise ended up being mostly overrated.  We got some rain on Tuesday, but decided to stick to our original plan and leave on Wednesday.

By Tuesday night, the van was packed and we were ready to go.  The kids had a little trouble setting down Tuesday night because they were so excited.  Jay and I just couldn't believe it was actually finally happening! And we hoped we'd remembered everything we needed!

Amazingly, everything fits.