So, we’re finally taking some time on the road together, 6 weeks in all. It’s not the year I originally planned, but as drama has taken over our lives (in the literal sense; the kids have been in performances non-stop for something like the past two years), I’ve had to adjust expectations. No complaints. I’m super-happy the kids have found another thing they are truly passionate about and have been fortunate and hard-working enough to succeed at it. But I’m also happy we’ve finally got enough of a break between shows to hit the road and see some of this great country.

We held back from long-distance travel for a long time. I’ve tried to approach travel with the kids as if they were souls dropped into the water of the world, and their experience ripples expanding outward in ever-broadening concentric circles…one room, one house, one city, one locality, etc. And hey, our Pacific Northwest home territory is so chock full of amazing stuff that it  made sense to spend the first years of the kids lives exploring it’s temperatre rain forests, granite mountains, rocky beaches and waters before devoting time just hauling them through space to some farther locale. Well yeah, there was that 2 weeks in Israel, but that’s kind of like going far away home.

A good decision, but at the same time I could see that my kids were becoming ever more satisfied with where they were, and while appreciate the zen of that, I also wanted them to appreciate the thill of seeking out the other, and the idea of a trip became more important. For a bit, I thought I might have actually missed my chance, as when I first broached the idea, it was met with less than total enthusiasm. They didn’t really want to travel. They liked being home.

Fortunately, I was saved by a combination of work, winter, and crass commercialism. Every spring, as that wan April became the gray of May, I perform a ritual of stomping around the house declaring that I wanted to move back to sunny Southern California. This year, I got so overloaded by work during the busy holiday season that I decided to take preventive action, and get out of Dodge in January. I wanted to head back to Venice, CA, re-visit the old neighborhood and show the kids evidence of my bohemian youth. They of course, could not help but notice the proximity of my proposed destination to Disneyland. 5 days of sun, sand, street artists, set pieces, and thrill rides later, the idea of travel didn’t seem so alien, and a quick hop to NYC stoked it further, so when I brought up the idea of  an extended road trip again, they were actually interested in hearing what we might see. And after all, we had had the Eurovan sitting in the driveway for almost a year just begging to be taken out.

So here we are. I’m a muddy, thrilling mix of excited and anxious. The idea is that Deb will do the driving and I’ll be able to work most of the road tome, thanks to the Eurovan’s table, a mobile hot spot, and a route heavy on national parks and cities. Once again, I benefit from my lovely wife’s overwhelming need for control that makes her insist on driving all the time.  Also, this is one of the reasons i decided to go into consulting work. All of my clients are in other states anyway, so our relationship is pretty much virtual and i should be able to keep doing everything irregardless of location. I have tried to cut back on work a bit, and I’ve been practicing working in the same room as the kids to get us both used to it, but until we get out there, I can’t be sure it will work. So I’m scared, but if I let that prevent my trying I wouldn’t just be ashamed, I wouldn’t be me.

It’s a good route,. We head down through Utah, back through Arizona then Colorado, all places that will be fairly alien to Seattle girls. We’ll stop in on my brother’s family in Kansas City. If we’re lucky, we’ll have time to swing North to Sandusky, Ohio, Niagara Falls, and Washington DC before meeting friends in North Carolina for the Lake Elsinore Art Festival. Then we head to Memphis, where the kids will meet my exrended family for kind of the first time. I don’t know if Stuckey’s is still out there, but I’ve been using this site called roadtrippers.com and I’ve already located two mystery vortexes. Deb has gotten us off to an AMAZING start by discovering the Adventure Rabbi’s Seder in Moab, so we’re hightailing it there first for Passover in the desert.

We’re gonna try to record it as much as we can. My dad loaned us this nifty tablet, for which I’ve purchased an equally nifty keyboard and installed a video editor. And I’ve started this blog. I hope there are pithy, moving things collected herein. You see how I already tried to get poetic with that ripp,es in the water stuff up there, and Deb and the kids constantly surprise me with the stuff they come up with. If all else fails, I know some good knock knock jokes and can always embark on a jackalope hunt.

More later.