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Summer Bloggin’ Road Trip 2013

We’re baaaack!

The photo above captures it all for me; the easy breezy carefree feeling of cruising down the highway, just The Kiddo and I, and the natural beauty we enjoyed in so many spots along the way.

I had a loose plan; a general itinerary of points A to B to C, etc., but when I asked Kiddo as we set out if he wanted to know the plan, or be surprised as we went along, he surprised me and said he wanted to find out as we rolled on down the road. I suppose that it’s true, how apples don’t fall far from the tree; I love spontaneity and was thrilled he was on board for what we came to jokingly refer to Mama’s Mystery Tour!

A few notes from the road:

Apparently, a pound of cherry sours is not enough for a 9 day, 18 city, 871 mile trek through California.
An impaired cell phone, that loses GPS signal more often that it finds one, could very easily resemble a frisbee.
As fun as all the driving was, it seems that being behind the wheel for many days is not good for the waistline!
Blogging from impaired cell phone mentioned above requires the use of a part of the brain I didn’t know existed!
My blogging friends have great taste in music! We had so much fun with all the tunes on our Road Trip Song List, and a special shout out to Lori for the awesome mix CD that accompanied us all along.

If you happen to catch the road trip bug, here are a few items that you might want to pack for your next trip:

Roadtrippers.com:
Co-founders James Fisher and Tatiana Parent suffer from an incurable case of wanderlust. So, they decided to design a web and mobile platform that streamlines discovery, planning, booking and navigation into one engaging road trip planner. (This is how I learned about Googleplex and the Steve Jobs garage!)
Waze:
(Shout out to Rick for showing me this great app at the front end of the trip!)
Waze is the world’s fastest-growing community-based traffic and navigation app. Join other drivers in your area who share real-time traffic and road info, saving everyone time and gas money on their daily commute.
Gas Buddy:
GasBuddy can help you find cheap gas prices near you

The not-nearly-as fun-as-packing-unpacking is almost done, back to work today, school starts Tuesday, photos to edit are waiting patiently for my attention, but in these moments of being back, I am simply savoring the experience. The time out on the open road with my kiddo. Great adventures. Making memories. Creating new inside jokes. Seeing new places and old places through new eyes. Experiencing a rite of passage together. Having my son get to spend time with an uncle, an aunt, a cousin, a granddad and more friends than I can count on two hands, all in one road trip.

And, while sitting on the beach in the photo above, our almost last stop, I quietly said, ‘what a great trip, huh honey?” not really expecting a nine yr old to answer directly. But he did. Oh did he.

“Best trip ever, mom.”

What kind of tour guide would I be, if I didn’t give you one last highlight? If you are viewing this on a Apple/Mac, an iPad, or iPhone, or listen to your tunes with an iPod, well this is where all those devices were, in a sense, born. On the way home, our last ‘stop’ – we only stopped long enough for me to snap a photo – was a drive-by of the house where Steve Jobs started Apple in his garage! We saw Googleplex and I wanted The Kiddo to see how something so big can start out so ordinary, so small.

It all started in that garage

We are still working on the CA Dreamin’ Travel Trivia scores and the results [including the answers!] will be posted later this week. I might even have a side-trip post or two; we shall see! And, don’t forget, we have prizes! In the meantime, thank you for riding along with us; it was so fun to have you as part of this experience, your comments and (sometimes humorous) trivia answers added SO much to our expedition. I will leave you with a road trip song list highlight…the first time this song played, we were just heading out of San Francisco…thank you Lori!