Leaving

Our trip will be very exiting, but I will miss many things including my cat Poe.

Staying Connected

Remember back in the day when we didn't blog or use social media, and often went weeks without going online? It really is hard to imagine in this age of living online, and certainly there is great merit in disconnecting completely for a long stretch. On the other hand, I used to always dread having to wade through hundreds of email messages when returning from a long trip. I'm not a big fan of surprises, especially ones that induce stress and anxiety.

After pondering the options for the last few months, I finally decided to take the more connected approach, especially since I wanted to keep close tabs on some friends and family members with health problems. Initially we were going to just activate the 3G service on my iPad, which would have meant having one connected device, but instead, I settled on a Verizon mobile hotspot, a very generous birthday present from my mom. This little device is pretty impressive, connecting to Verizon's 4G or 3G service and transmitting a wifi signal to our two iPods, two iPads and one laptop.

This doesn't mean that we'll be online very much, but it will be most convenient. We won't be streaming much video, since it uses lots of data, but it will be great for occasionally chatting or skyping with family and friends, as well as checking in with Facebook and email, posting blog entries and listening to Pandora on rainy days (if we get any).

Now that we have the technology figured out, we are in the process of list making using the very cool Paperless iPad app. List making is typically Gail's domain—it's one of her specialties, but I'm starting to get into it. I'm realizing that every time I augment a list, the stress level goes down. There's so much to remember between now and July 1st, so the more we write down, the easier it will get.

Now that school is out for all of us, we just have Saturday's bike race at the Watkins Glen speedway, then a solid week of organizing, cleaning, planning and packing. This next week will really go by fast!!

Armin's done the posts thus far. Now I'll take a shot at one.

 We're just over a week away from our departure date. There's so much to do! We're at the point of making many lists, trying to anticipate what we'll need but not wanting to haul everything we own with us.

The sky over Arches; Photo by Dan and Cindy Duriscoe

We're also trying to calm some anxiety on the part of the boys—they're concerned about carsickness, snakebites, getting lost in the backcountry, missing their friends, not getting enough s'mores... At the same time, we're all getting excited about all of the adventures ahead of us. We're reading up on good hiking trails, wildlife, breakfast spots, things to see. I can't wait to look up at the stars from our campsites!

 Our first few days will be pretty much consumed with just covering ground. We'll make it to Toledo the first night, Iowa City the second, and Mitchell, SD the third. I've never been to the first two, but have fond memories of the Corn Palace from our trip out west in the '90s. Our first camp site is in the Black Hills, and I'm really looking forward to hearing what the boys think about the Badlands, Mount Rushmore, and Wall Drug.

Lists and Lit

We're closing in on three weeks to go before our great Rocky Mountain family adventure. July 1 can't come fast enough, but in the meantime I'm starting to think about list making and good choices for audiobooks to while away the long hours in the car on the way to the Black Hills and Badlands. Any recommendations would be greatly appreciated, by the way.

Since we're headed straight for Lakota country, I thought it would be appropriate and perfectly timed to learn more as a family about the Lakota culture. I found the book The Lakota Way: Stories and Lessons for Living by Joseph M. Marshall III, and luckily Amazon has the MP3 audiobook, so at least we have a start to our road trip audiobook collection. I wish there were more obvious choices, but this is a good librarian challenge.

After mulling over the iPad list making app options (and there are seemingly endless choices), I settled on Paperless. It's elegant, easy to use, and gets great reviews. I've been creating several lists (camping gear, bike accessories, my clothes), and with each list you can check each item off the list, which changes its' status to "complete," meaning that your items are packed and loaded. Very cool and highly recommended.

While the to-do list is still sizable, it is definitely manageable and getting smaller.

Less Than 5 Weeks Out...Backyard Camping

With less than five weeks before we head out to points west, the long weekend presented us with the perfect opportunity to take stock of the camping gear and do some backyard camping. After scurrying about, searching high and low for the kids' sleeping bags for about an hour, we were successful and had a pretty nice backyard camping experience. It would have been better had it not been for the nasty neighbor with the choice vocabulary who erupted around 2 am. Oh, and then there was the technical problem of my pillow constantly sliding off of my thermarest pad. I finally realized around 3 am that if I took the pillowcase off and laid it on top, it wouldn't slide off anymore.

Tonight the boys and I will spend a second night in the tent so that we will feel a bit more ready to go on July 1. Gail is retreating back indoors, however. She has more work to do to make her pillow arrangement work better.

Other random notes:

• Now that Toby has his awesome Redline cyclocross bike, he'll be taking that instead of his heavy mountain bike. 
• In addition to the four roof racks for the family bikes, I also acquired two Thule Wheel On rooftop wheel racks. Since one of the racks holds a bike with both wheels on, we now only have to store Leo's small front wheel in the van, which takes care of my growing concerns about space. This also means that I will likely have room for my rugged acoustic guitar, which seems kind of necessary.
• I finally broke down and bought a Garmin Nüvi GPS unit. This will remove a bit of stress from finding hotels and campsites, and they're so cheap these days that it seemed an obvious choice. This will forever change the "are we there yet" mantra. Now they will have a constantly updating ETA!
• Finally, I'm on the verge of buying a Verizon mobile hotspot with month-to-month service. I didn't want to be trapped in a 2-year contract, and it seemed that having only the iPad on 3G was too limiting. This way the boys can have a little screen time and blog from their own devices. They certainly know that they won't be getting much screen time on this trip, but this will make the long drives a little more bearable. I'm guessing that big chunks of our trip will have spotty 3G coverage at best, which doesn't bother me in the slightest.

Bike and hike.

On our trip we will bring are bikes to commute. My brother will bring his mountain bike but me and my dad our bringing our cross bikes. My mom will bring her road bike. We will hike on more dangerous trails than Ithaca trails so we will need preparation.

Route Update

In April Gail and I spent a good chunk of time planning out more details and reserving campsites at national parks. It turns out that you can't reserve these sites too soon, since many choice spots were already taken, and we even had to shift our agenda a little. Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado was to be our first stop, but due to limited campsite availability, the Black Hills and Badlands come first now.

We also decided that it was a bit much to try to reach our first park in three days, so we now have a much more civilized plan:

• Day 1 (July 1): Ithaca to Toledo, OH, 7 1/2 hours
• Day 2: Toledo to Iowa City, IA, 7 1/2 hours
• Day 3: Iowa City to Mitchell, SD (Corn Palace, here we come!), 7 1/2 hours
• Day 4: Mitchell, SD to Black Hills, SD, 5 1/2 hours

Even our motels are reserved for the first three nights. To make up for the fact that we will be putting in long days in the car, we have motels with pools for days 1-3. Day 4 will be our first night of camping,   and we chose the Black Hills rather than the Badlands so that we might get a little more shade and forest.

Lucky Toby got his cyclocross bike yesterday, which means that he'll be having a blast cycling in the national park. Leo is bringing his mountain bike, which should suit him just fine. I have racks for all bikes, as well as a couple of Thule rooftop wheel carriers to keep bulky wheels out of the van.

Our trip is tantalizingly close! It's hard to believe that we're hitting the road in only 1 1/2 months.