An extended Vacation?

So far our trip has felt like one long vacation. We started out with a road trip to California where we stayed with relatives. We spent our time at the beach , swimming in the pool most every day, and just having fun with grandparents and cousins.

The next phase of our trip consisted of flying to Baltimore, renting a car and doing a week long road trip.

We walked around the battlefields at Gettysburg

bought chocolate in Hershey

and went on a buggy ride in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

 After a few days in Pennsylvania, we headed to Virginia.

We imagined what life would have been like for the first settlers of Jamestown, 

participated in a cannon firing at Yorktown,

learned about early colonial life,

enjoyed the air conditioned science museum in Richmond,

 and wished we hadn't gone to Kitty Hawk.

Finally it was time to return our rental car and now we rely on public transportation as we stay in Washington DC for the next few weeks. We checked into our apartment, walked to the grocery store, bought metro passes and are ready to continue the US history portion of our home school.  Maybe now the reality of what we are doing will set in and it will feel less like an extended vacation!

Wright Place Wrong Time

The starting point of those first flights.

Saturday we tried to go to the Wright Brothers National Memorial.  We left Williamsburg, VA at 9:30am thinking that would be enough time to make the 1.5-hour drive*, leisurely enjoy the park, and learn something too.  I was really looking forward to it.  We knew the park closed at 5pm and thought we had included sufficient travel time in our plan.

Markers indicating the distances flown.

If you didn't know (like us), the Wright Brothers National Memorial is on an island called "The Outer Banks" in North Carolina.  It is a very popular vacation destination and there is only one road on to the island and one road off.  It is all governed by a single traffic signal on the island.  Consequently, long streams of traffic get backed up on the island, across the only bridge to the island, and back 30 miles on the mainland.  We sat in traffic for 5+ hours, considered turning back several times, and eventually pulled in to the parking lot at 4:45pm.  We were so late that there was no Park Ranger at the gate to collect our fee.

We used the restroom and took a half dozen pictures in those few minutes before we felt obliged to leave.  I would have loved to learn more about the Wright brothers and their experience but the timing wasn't right.  Saturday afternoon is not the time for a quick trip to the Outer Banks.  It was definitely the Wright place but the wrong time.

*We learned that Google estimates the impact of traffic on your route and time to travel based on real-time data meaning that the estimate you get now is based on current traffic conditions and may not be accurate for the day or time you intend to travel.

Megamind's inspiration

We went to the Griffith Observatory and immediately after I saw I thought “ it looks like the one on Megamind” here are two pictures to compare them. At least the tower on the right of the Griffith observatory looks like the picture.

Griffith Observatory

Megamind Observatory

The observatory was very interesting, but we didn't stay long. They had a clock that proved the earth rotated, almost all the elements in little cages, a sundial, and a giant telescope. I wanted to stay longer, but we only stayed for about 30-40 minutes. It was a great place even if you had to be really lucky to find parking within a mile of the observatory.

Duffle Bags or Backpacks?

We followed a recommendation we read online to get duffle bags to cover our backpacks during air travel.  The intent of using a duffle bag is to protect the backpack and its straps from damage and to make the backpack and its contents less interesting to anyone who otherwise might be interested in our backpacks.  The duffle bags served their purposes perfectly.  The backpacks were undamaged and their contents safe.  However, and this is the lesson learned, duffle bags are not backpacks.

After we collected our bags from the luggage carousel there was a short walk to the rental car shuttle bus.  Once at the rental car facility there was a short walk to the rental car.  We estimated that it would take more energy and time to take the duffle bags off of the backpacks than it would save for the short walk.  We were wrong.  It was painful and difficult.

A loaded backpack is difficult to carry unless it is on your back, even for short distances.  From now on we will remove the duffle bags even for short distances.

Hotel Pillows

The pillows at one of the hotels we stayed in.... Scary? And we haven't even left the USA yet!

Word of Advice: don't go to Days Inns.

Trial Runs Can Be Good

One fringe benefit of our year-long travel plan is that we had multiple "trial runs" built-in without knowing it.  Trial runs provide ways to evaluate preparation without the expense of the full experience.

For instance, after we got a new, highly recommended suitcase/bag I took it on a business trip to evaluate if a bag like that would work for each of us on our big trip.  It is a great bag and worked wonderfully for my business trip but it wasn't going to be just right for each of us on our trip.  Having a chance to try it out first taught us a couple things.  First, we learned that it is a great bag.  Second, we learned that it would not work for long-term travel and consequently that we would not need to purchase more of these bags for the family.  We'll keep the bag for future, shorter trips but for our big trip we'd need something else.  We ended up deciding on backpacking backpacks.  I'll write more about them later.

On our trial run in California

Our itinerary has always included Southern California.  My parents live there and it has been almost a year since our last visit.  Mom and dad have an extra covered parking spot and offered to garage our car while we are gone.  Besides the benefit of seeing family and being able to drop off our car, this trip to California gave us a chance to try out our new gear and travel routine--and here is the important part--in a familiar setting.  We've been to California to visit my parents many times.  We feel somewhat comfortable on the roads.  Everyone speaks English.  We know where the grocery store and church are.  But it isn't home.  We got a chance to get used to living with and working with backpacks in a familiar setting.  We got a chance to establish/maintain some family routines despite being in different (non-home) locations and circumstances.

Our next stop is the Washington DC area.  We've never been there as a family.  Elaine and I have been there but not together.  Getting there and living there will take us one more step into the full-blown travel routine.  We will be able to "practice" airline travel while still in the US with our full compliment of backpacks.  It is still the US and people still speak English but it is not as familiar for us as California.  If we discover some deficiency in our plans or equipment arrangements we will be able to take care of it relatively easily.

After Washington DC we travel to Europe where things will be more difficult but because of our "trial runs" in California and DC I am confident that we will be OK.  My business trip helped us prepare for California which helped prepare us for DC which will help prepare us for Europe which will help prepare us for Asia.  At least that is the plan.

Hollywood

 We went to Hollywood in the last week, we got some cool pictures (Sonja) and saw some weird stuff.

Jack Sparrow, and some pirate girl, maybe Elizabeth Swan.

Bumblebee from Transformers.

Ironman, it was probably the best costume we saw there, he looked super good.









We saw some strange things too, we saw a bald guy combing his. . scalp? Our dad then told us to get out our cameras because we were going to see some pretty weird stuff, and the words had scarcely left his mouth when we see this guy only wearing whitey-tighties. The really weird part was that they were sparkly, like some glitter had been dumped all over them. I don't think it gets too much weirder than that.