Highway 1 All the Way

Our trip begins at 9:30am on Saturday, the 27^th, the day after the major earthquake in Chile. At this point, we do not know how the earthquake will affect our travel plans and will be tracking the recovery as we get closer.

The Kellermans give us a wonderful send-off: delicious sloppy Joes for dinner on Friday and yummy breakfast on Saturday morning. We leave Pacifica in a downpour – it seems appropriate to be heading towards warmer weather.

As we drive south, I am amazed at the beauty of California. The hills are vivid green, contrasted by bright yellow mustard flowers. The fruit trees are in full bloom – hot pink and white flowers everywhere. When we are at the halfway point to Los Angeles, we hit a major rain storm and have little visibility. We go over the Grapevine, closely watching the outside temperature gauge on the minivan’s control panel: 39, 38, 37, 35 degrees. Snow is coming down, but fortunately not sticking on the roads and we arrive safely to Los Angeles.

As a treat, I promise to take the kids to one amusement park before crossing the border. They select Magic Mountain, where we go on Sunday. I experience the scariest ride of my life! Although I am an avid roller coaster rider, this one, the X2, terrifies me. The Magic Mountain brochure describes the X2 as “A whole new Xtreme Xperience – the world’s first and only 5^th dimensional thrill!” I close my eyes the entire time and want the ride to end. Here is the reaction from the family:

• Paul: exhilarating and horrifying at the same time
• Connor: most crazy, awesome, scary, stomach turning, incredible ride. 4 hours after leaving the park, my stomach is still in my throat.
• Quinn: it was crazy!

The rest of the roller coasters, with their 360s and steep inclines, are tame in comparison. Magic Mountain is an impressive park with 13 roller coasters; we hit about half.  Maybe we will hit the second half on our way home, but not the X2!

Wow! We leave next Saturday and should  be in Los Angeles one week from now, on our way to Mexico. Although we have been planning this trips for months, actually years, now that we are on the brink of leaving, it doesn’t seem real. I keep asking myself, “Is this really happening?”

Final preparations have been stressful, to put it lightly. Fortunately, Paul is still talking to me, mostly along the lines of, “Karen, breathe” and “Don’t worry, we will get everything done.” I won’t bore you with all the details about getting ready for a trip of this magnitude. I have an Excel spreadsheet with three tabs for tasks, packing list and expenses, which I would be happy to share if you want to take a trip like this. Bottom line – preparing is exhausting! Stats to date:

–          Over 80 tasks and increasing daily

–          Over 75 items on the packing list

–          Over $4000 in expense so far (travel docs, supplies, medicine, books, etc.)

The kids’ last day of school was on the Feb 12^th and have been home schooling since then. Connor’s teachers gave him a great send off with a farewell party and handmade bon voyage cards. The best note from Connor’s friend was, “Visit dem nude beaches” (little does Connor know that Latin American countries rarely have nude beaches…). We plan to stay in contact with both Connor’s and Quinn’s classes while we are travelling, which should be a interesting geography and cultural lesson for the students.

So… the next blog posting will be from the road. Woo hoo!

Hasta Los Angeles,

Karen

Our stuff – will it all fit in the minivan?

Just one month until we leave – augh! My odd calmness quickly turned into frenzied anxiousness. Fortunately, planning has been going amazingly well. We found a wonderful family to rent the house and even take care of Chichi (the cat) and Bob (the snake). We got to know them well last night over dinner and wine and are becoming fast friends 🙂

After weeks of struggling with high school homeschooling options, I finally found an online school for Connor. Unlike the Pacifica School District which has been tremendously helpful with homeschooling up through 8th grade, the high school district simply explained their policy for accepting coursework and sent me off to do my own research. After many phone calls and emails, I was thrilled to find National University Virtual High School, which will allow Connor to work asynchronously. He can even start studying Spanish this summer to get a head start.

Now that we have accomplished the three big ticket items (work, school and house), we can focus on the million and one little things that need to get done before we leave. Not surprisingly, as a project manager, I have a detailed “project plan” with tasks, resources and due dates… Paul is now receiving his “Honey-Do” list on a daily basis. Yes, the anxiety of reaching launch day is ever present, but we are taking time to spend time with our family and friends before we disappear.

So… I hear that some bets are being made about our trip. This is heresay from Patrick, so the details might be skewed:

Patrick: We will be on the road for 1 1/2 months, then get tired of travelling and stay at the Guatemala house.

Johnny Russell: Bee-line to Guatemala and stay there.

Karen’s Mom and Dad: Make it to the Guatemala house, leave the minivan behind, and fly for the rest of the trip.

Bobby has even projected a blog posting:

Day Two San Diego. 
“Well, we’re just barely underway but we discovered a stow-away today after reaching the beaches of San Diego. Turns out, our friend Bobby was hiding in the luggage carrier on top of the van!!! Of course, we said he could ride with us the entire way to our house in Guatamala. It will be fun to have him around,…”

Feel free to post your bets to the forum. Winner gets a bottle of good Tequila from Mexico (or the last country that we visit)!

Karen

The trip is rapidly approaching. For some reason, I am oddly calm, which is not characteristic of my behavior before a major endeavor. Paul and I have been chipping away at the “To Do” list. My biggest concerns are 1) my job, 2) education for the kids, and 3) renting the house. For #1, I was notified in mid-November that I would be laid off from Adobe effective Feb. 26th. After I recovered from the shock, I called Paul, who questioned if we would still go on the trip. I responded with, “Hell yes! But let’s take a nine month trip instead of six, so that we can definitely get to Chile.” Thus, the stress of approval for an extended leave of absence and coverage for my job was immediately alleviated. At some point, I will need to figure out what I am going to do for work, but I don’t need to fret about that now 🙂

On the education front, I am relieved that home schooling should go smoothly. I met with the homeschooling teacher for the Pacifica School District and learned that all of the books and lesson plans will be provided for free (yippee!). We will send the completed school work in every two weeks and communicate about the lessons via email. I figure that the kids will need to study for about 3 hours each day, as well as read for 1 hour and keep a daily journal. The beauty of home schooling is that visiting a volcano, ruins, whales, etc. can be credited as part of the science and history curriculum. The kids will be on the regular school year (late August thru mid June), so they will actually get some time off. This is all great up to 8th grade, then the process changes. I still need to contact the high school to figure out what Connor needs to do for his first freshman semester; I am hoping that the high school has as good of a program as the grammar schools…

The next major task is to get the house rented. I will post the rental on Craig’s List in early January as a short-term rental for an amount that will cover mortgage, insurance, property tax, utilities, maintenance and a little extra for unexpected problems. We have been packing up the “clutter” and storing our stuff under the house. Paul says that things keep disappearing 🙂 Fingers crossed that we will find nice people to stay and take good care of our home.

Christmas is just one week away, then I will go back into full planning mode. There are lots of presents under the tree – almost all of them related to the trip. The kids will not be thrilled with their gifts: sleeping sacks, flashlights, head lamps, books, duffel bags, journals, umbrellas, etc.

I am so excited as 2010 approaches – it will be an amazing year for us, filled with adventures and stories that we will someday tell our grandchildren 🙂

 Karen