We are firing up the ol\u2019 blog today in an effort to chronicle the epic road trip in which 13 people\u20149 of them kids\u2014load up in an RV and attempt to navigate the next 5000 western miles and still remain coherent, contributing members of society when we pull back into the driveway a month from now.<\/p>\n
I wish I was the type of person that had been aware enough to plan this family vacation to Mt. Rushmore and Yellowstone over the National Park Service 100th birthday on purpose; but it looks like we\u2019re just lucky instead. Truth is, this has been one of those dream trips that I\u2019ve been planning only in my head and a well-worn atlas for a couple of decades, but never really found the right opportunity to take such a monumental trip. That it coincides during this celebratory anniversary is mere coincidence, but I\u2019ll take credit for being that earthy girl I\u2019ve aspired to be over the years and pretend I meant it nonetheless.<\/p>\n
Our route takes us from Nashville to St. Louis, Kansas City, Sioux Falls, Rapid City, Deadwood, Cody, West Yellowstone, Bismarck, Minneapolis and Chicago. Over 4000 miles and 15 states. We are making 10 planned stops along the way; 2 major league baseball games, 1 MLS game, and dozens of the most touristy, cornball destinations within 10 miles of an interstate exit ramp we can find. <\/p>\n
As stated before, we are not alone (by a long shot) on our adventure. There is another (large) family that just slightly off kilter enough to attempt this journey with us. The Louise to my Thelma, my friend and I will take the first leg of this trip with 8 of those children and guide the caravan to the first few ports of call until we are joined by our saner halves in somewhere in South Dakota. We see no downside, really.<\/p>\n
We welcome you to follow along\u2014even if in mocking disbelief\u2014as our long-planned adventure commences this week. In addition to this dusted-off home, we also plan to update all of the usual inter web hot spots of Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. <\/p>\n
Bon Voyage, dear friends. Bon Voyage.<\/p>\n
#Fischmore\/Henrystone<\/p>\n
<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
We are firing up the ol\u2019 blog today in an effort to chronicle the epic road trip in which 13 people\u20149 of them kids\u2014load up in an RV and attempt to navigate the next 5000 western miles and still remain coherent, contributing members of society when we pull back into the driveway a month from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3NIOM-aP","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":782,"url":"http:\/\/www.suburbandiva.com\/2018\/06\/26\/the-packing-list\/","url_meta":{"origin":671,"position":0},"title":"The Packing List","date":"June 26, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"1. Clothes and stuff Me: Even if we do laundry twice during the trip, that makes about 90 T-shirts and 180 socks just for reference. Butch: Over\/under that we return with 11 of the original sock total? Me: Under is how that works. 2. Outdoor Movie System with 70' Screen\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Column"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":853,"url":"http:\/\/www.suburbandiva.com\/2018\/07\/19\/beantown\/","url_meta":{"origin":671,"position":1},"title":"Beantown","date":"July 19, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"We rolled into Boston licking our wounds, as in the bites, stings, stabs, disembowelments, or whatever the native Maine insects inflicted upon us over the last four days. They are intense little buggers, that's for certain. So a couple of nights in a hotel was just the respite we needed.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Column"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.suburbandiva.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/IMG_8387-300x225.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":787,"url":"http:\/\/www.suburbandiva.com\/2018\/06\/28\/not-the-best-travel-guide-in-the-world-but-itll-do\/","url_meta":{"origin":671,"position":2},"title":"Not the best travel guide in the world, but it’ll do","date":"June 28, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Alright, enough messing around. We really have to get semi-serious for 6 minutes to pull this off. It's logistics day, and I'll take just a minute to provide some real details on the trip planning before we get back to our regularly scheduled nonsense just in case anyone was looking\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Column"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.suburbandiva.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/robes2-300x225.jpeg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":807,"url":"http:\/\/www.suburbandiva.com\/2018\/07\/04\/day-three\/","url_meta":{"origin":671,"position":3},"title":"Day Three","date":"July 4, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"We continued our own group heatwave with a trip to the ballpark on Day 3. Translate that to mean we certainly make a splash wherever we go and most of the time we're a hot mess. But the unsuspecting folks with the Cincinnati Reds were amazing hosts, treating us to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Column"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.suburbandiva.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/IMG_8204-e1530666006224-225x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":690,"url":"http:\/\/www.suburbandiva.com\/2016\/07\/16\/day-7-badlands-and-bad-flies\/","url_meta":{"origin":671,"position":4},"title":"Day 7–Badlands and bad flies","date":"July 16, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"The Badlands were an unexpected, awe-inspiring sight. Not a single picture could or has ever done it justice although we certainly tried through a myriad of lenses yesterday. Exploring that grandeur was not only a highlight of this trip, but certainly one of all my travels. Surprises like a field\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Column"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":723,"url":"http:\/\/www.suburbandiva.com\/2016\/08\/09\/postscript-and-legal-notes\/","url_meta":{"origin":671,"position":5},"title":"Postscript and legal notes","date":"August 9, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Now that we've been back a few days and Louise's legal team has had a chance to review the material, (she's so high maintenance) I thought I'd offer a couple of clarifications from our recent trip. ~All of the mystery rashes and various infections have been cleared up. The only\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Column"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.suburbandiva.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/671"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.suburbandiva.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.suburbandiva.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.suburbandiva.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.suburbandiva.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=671"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.suburbandiva.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/671\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":672,"href":"http:\/\/www.suburbandiva.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/671\/revisions\/672"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.suburbandiva.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.suburbandiva.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.suburbandiva.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}