We Went Off: A Little Background, a Big Dream About \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Coming Back New,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and a Long Haul West (#1)<\/p>\n
This year, our obligations have changed a bit, allowing us to stick closer to home for most the summer, so we decided to make this the summer of the trip out West. Being all about bang for our buck, we also decided to rent an RV for a few days of the trip so that we could check off the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Go RVing\u00e2\u20ac\u009d action item from our family\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s to-do list as well.<\/p>\n The plan was this: We were going to take two days making a beeline for Denver in our faithful minivan. In Denver, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d pick up an RV and head north, weaving our way through Wyoming and Montana. Then, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d return to Denver, drop off the RV, spend a few days in Colorado, and then head up to South Dakota before continuing on to the Midwest to see family. In the course of just over two weeks, we were going to show the small people as much of the country as we possibly could.<\/p>\n Oh, and see, there was one other thing. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve mentioned that I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m spellbound by the concept behind the Princess Cruises tagline \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Come Back New.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d <\/a>Since a cruise wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t really an option at this juncture, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d secretly hoped that after this trip, the All-American family trip if you will, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d come back new<\/em>. After all, our horses were westward bound, pointed toward the land of wild, optimistic openness, a land that to me has always spelled the opportunity to remake oneself. It was my best shot, I reasoned, at realizing the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Come Back New\u00e2\u20ac\u009d dream.<\/p>\n No pressure or anything.<\/p>\n So we took off in the morning of the first day, a day which proved to be largely uneventful other than the fact that Baby-girl asked how long until we got to Denver approximately one hundred and seventeen times. The first time she asked, we hadn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even left our county yet. And so it continued from there.<\/p>\n We planned on stopping either in St. Louis or Kansas City the first night, depending on how we felt at the time, but somewhere in Tennessee I got the idea of seeing if we could just drive straight through to Denver. My thinking was this would allow us to get to our hotel in Denver really early on the second day, so that we could stock up on supplies and get to bed early to prepare for an early start the next morning.<\/p>\n There I went thinking again. No, actually, I wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t entirely sure if I could do it driving-wise, but LCB\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s always game for what he considers child\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s play anyway (\u00e2\u20ac\u0153When I was a kid, we always drove straight through when we went out West\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6no air conditioning and no windows\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6uphill the whole way both ways\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6Pa dropped us by the side of the road with bows and arrows and told us not to come back until we had enough food for the whole family\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6blah, blah, blah.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d). So, with LCB already eager to remind us all of his manhood (picture grunting, followed by, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m ready to muscle through it,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and then more grunting), when I got the midnight second wind courtesy of Cyndi Lauper and Starbucks, I was in. We drove our little manly selves through the night.<\/p>\n Because a story is never complete unless it includes either blathering or a story within a story (I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not really sure which category would be accurate for this next part), let me share something here. For years, with all our business travels, where I often had to pack for weeks at a time, as I packed, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d repeat certain lines to myself over and over as a way of encouraging myself to keep the pace instead of assuming the fetal curl like I usually wanted to do. Early in an evening of diaper counting and contemplation over how many pairs of socks one needs, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d begin with lines from Frost\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s poem \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/a> The lines I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d repeat are:<\/p>\n \u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,<\/p>\n \u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 But I have promises to keep,<\/p>\n \u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 And miles to go before I sleep,<\/p>\n \u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 And miles to go before I sleep.<\/p>\n Later in the evening, when my literacy regressed, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d switch to Dory of Finding Nemo<\/em><\/a> fame, and repeat her lines:\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n \u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Just keep swimming,<\/p>\n \u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Just keep swimming,<\/p>\n \u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Just keep swimming, swimming, swimming,<\/p>\n \u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 What do we do, we swim, swim, swim.<\/p>\n![\"IMG_7843\"](\"http:\/\/www.anislandmom.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/IMG_7843-1024x657.jpg\")
<\/a>For years, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve dreamed of taking the small people out West, of showing them the world of mountains and cowboys and the endless open range. But school obligations have limited us to traveling during the summers. And unfortunately, business obligations have kept us traveling large parts of the summer, which means we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been less than enthralled by the idea of more travel during our limited free time.<\/p>\n