ROAD TRIP!!

I LOVE road trips. They rock. I love to drive for hours and hours and see some of the different places in this HUGE country of ours. It is one of the freedoms that we have in the US that I REALLY appreciate. I am taking a road trip to Kansas City tomorrow with my son. It will be his first road trip in which he can legally drive. I am excited! I get to pass on the love of road trips that has been in our family for at least 4 generations. I think of my grandparents coming over to the USA from Europe and how exciting it must have been. An Adventure. I grew up travelling almost every weekend over the summer to different states in the Midwest to show our horses at different regional shows. I loved every minute of it. I remember hearing stories from my dad about how he traveled on the railroads when he was a young adult, seeing the country side. My mom as well, talking about the road trips she and her friends took out to Utah when they were in college. In the past 5 years my extended family has re-adopted the road trip idea, and we try every year to take a road trip somewhere and spend some family time together. Two of my brothers and their families as well as me and my 2 kids and my mom plan a trip, and we have so much fun. One year we went to South Dakota and saw the badlands, went through Needles Park, Mt. Rushmore etc. It was so awesome. This year because of schedules we were unable to do our road trip. Mom and I got the itch so we just took a day trip up to Brainerd with Jubal. It was great. One year Mom, the kids and I went up to the Upper Penninsula of Michigan. Mom had a horse show to judge so we dropped her off and proceeded to drive 600 miles around the UP and see the Soo Locks, Whitefish Point (where the Edmund Fitzgerald artifacts are) and also see several lighthouses along the way. That trip is in my top 3 list. It was a lot of driving but well worth it.
One of my favorite memories from my childhood is racing my horse bareback as fast as he could go (which once was clocked at 35mph) until the tears would come to my eyes from the wind. THAT was freedom. I get that same feeling driving a car on the freeway while seeing all of the world pass me by.