In the five years that Steven and I have been married, we have traveled once to Colorado with my family, once to Wisconsin to visit friends, once to Oklahoma and a few day trips to various destinations. Growing up, my parents cultivated a healthy appetite for road-trips. All things travel and adventure were encouraged. I had been craving an epic road-trip for a long time. It was gnawing at my soul. Thoughts of mountains, of waves, ocean, trees, the smell of pines, the heat of the desert… these thoughts made me ache with longing. It’s tough to make travel a priority when you have a growing family. You can’t help but feel a sense of\u00a0guilt these days when you decide to take a week+ off from work or tell your clients you won’t be there for them. But I believe it is crucial to our health in every way.<\/p>\n
This trip was everything I could have hoped it would be. We saw things we had never seen, we had experiences we couldn’t have imagined and we made memories we’ll keep forever. My craving was completely satisfied. I miss it now, it was over too soon, but I returned renewed. I breathed in the mountain\/ocean\/pine-scented air and it’s still fueling my body and mind until we can go again. I am forever grateful for the opportunity and I plan to re-live these moments quite a bit until the next time.<\/p>\n
We left late Friday night so we could get a huge chunk of the driving done during the night while the boys slept. The plan was to take turns sleeping\/driving, but I was way too excited for that. I think I only got about 30 minutes of sleep in 40 hours (wouldn’t recommend it, lol.)<\/p>\n
The first “moment<\/strong><\/span>” we had was in the middle of Kansas. We were a few hours into our journey when\u00a0Steven says “Wow! Look at all those lights!” and I looked ahead and there were\u00a0magenta\u00a0blinking lights as far as the eye could see, dotting the horizon, small, but growing larger and brighter. We soon realized they were the lights on the tops of the giant windmills <\/a>that went on for miles!!! It was amazing!\u00a0This was right about the time we switched and I took my first turn as driver. The boys were all sleeping, I turned on my music and gazed\u00a0out over the blinking lights, watching the shadowy forms of the giant windmills passing us as we flew down the highway going 80+. \u00a0I felt the rush of adventure and we were still in Kansas!<\/p>\n