Why do I do I do what I do?

Why do I do what I do? I ask myself this all the time. Unfortunately I don't have an answer. This summer I drove 6534 miles in three weeks for my vacation. Mostly I wanted to visit my daughter Kelly in Tacoma, Washington as she had moved there last August and I missed her tremendously! Of course I could have flown there and had a great visit and saved a lot of money to boot. But, I LOVE long road trips! I also wanted to visit my good, very good friend Joanna in Paonia, Colorado. So, on July 8th off I set on my cross country adventure....

I had my 4Runner packed with stuff. all kinds of stuff... a cooler with the food I needed to eat before it went bad so I couldn't leave it in the fridge at home, a suitcase full of clothes I would never wear on this trip, beer to give as host gifts for my couch surfing hosts, my bicycle on the back, bicycling gear, camping gear mostly in the Yakima rooftop carrier- also stuff I would never use on this trip. I kept the front seat open in case I came across a hitchhiker; sadly you don't see many hitchhikers these and even more sadly I didn't see any.

I had book ends for my trip: a wedding on July 7th and a wedding on July 28th; the three weeks in between were my travel dates. It really sucks to have a drop dead date to be back. I left Staunton on July 8th with the goal of getting past Chicago. This was an important goal and a long ass day behind the wheel. Important to get past Chicago because it was a Sunday. Not getting past Chicago on Sunday would mean dealing with the Monday morning traffic. So I was 14 hours in the car and that's way too many hours in a car. But worth it I guess because I made it to Rockford, Illinois for the night. A quick night in a hotel and then off again in the morning. I drove to Onalaska, Wisconsin where I found a bike trail. I think I rode almost 30 miles on the trail north until it ended and then I found my way to a road, put the visitor center in Google Maps and found my way back without using the bike trail. I brought the wrong bike; I should have brought my heavier, wider tired hybrid which is better for trails than my road bike with skinny tires. This proved to be true throughout my trip. After my bike ride I drove into Minnesota (some sweet memories from Minnesota I'll have to blog about someday, but this time just passing through). I didn't stop until I got to Mitchell South Dakota where I spent the night after another long day of travel. I'm home now, it's a month later and I've suddenly gotten a notion to write it all down. This is enough for now, maybe some more tomorrow. There's always tomorrow... xox