My Craziest Idea Ever! ...But I'm doing it in two weeks!

Guess what? I'm taking the children on a trip. A long trip. All by myself. We'll be gone almost two months. I've decided to drive them down to Florida to see Nathan's family and then to California to see mine. Then of course we have to drive home to North Carolina.
First, how the idea came about, then how we'll implement it.
1.) Sometime last year Spencer and I loved to talk about what we'd do if we ever made a cross country trip. We did this at bedtime and it seemed like a secret between us. Each night we talked about the route we'd go and what we would see. I've always loved road trips but I never thought we'd actually do it.
Then last Christmas my siblings planned a surprise party for my parents 40th anniversary and 60th birthdays. I wished I could go to it but it's been 6 years since I've been home and I've gotten used to being left out of things and not being able to afford the trip. The party was scheduled for Friday night and on Tuesday Nathan said, "You know, if we left right now and drove 46 hours straight through we could make it in time for the party." He really wanted to go and surprise them. We did that 9 years ago. We lived in Dallas and didn't have any Thanksgiving plans (or an oven to cook a turkey in) and Nathan said the same thing: "If we left right now and drove 30 hours straight through we could make it there by Thanksgiving morning." We had prayed, felt good about it, packed, and left. Kylie was 2 and Madalyn was 8 months old. We drove it straight through leaving at 1am on Wednesday and getting there at 7 am Thanksgiving morning. He loved surprising them. This time, though, I didn't feel good about it. With me being due in 6 weeks I knew I'd need to stop and walk around (not to mention use the bathroom). The other kids would need more breaks than when we only had 2 kids. Besides, I told him, if we ever made the drive I would want to stop and see things and not drive there and back as fast as we could. We would only be able to stay two days before having to turn around and come back. So the idea was abandoned. Or so I thought. It did stick in my mind and resurfaced occasionally. I thought we could do it next summer when the baby would be 1 1/2 and we could study US geography all year and then make the trip.
One day a couple of weeks ago the thought kept coming back and I kept pushing it away. Finally I entertained it and felt really good about it. I quickly planned out how it would work out and everything felt right. I told it to Nathan and he said, "Then you'd better go this year." So we're going!

2.) Here's the itinerary: Friday, June 1. Drive to Florida. Nathan will be driving his car down with us. Since Makenna was born we don't have enough seats in our van for him so he can't come with us. (Six kids in the back and Kylie in the front seat now.) Saturday is his grandparent's 60th wedding anniversary. Nathan will drive home Monday or Tuesday. We will stay until Thursday. Thursday and Friday we'll drive to Dallas, where we'll stay the weekend. Monday we'll be on the road again and go to Carlsbad Caverns, White Sands, Albuquerque, Petrified Forest, Grand Canyon, Las Vegas, and Yosemite over the next 5 days. We'll get to my house just in time for Father's Day.
We'll stay there for 3 weeks and then go camping with all of my family for a week. We'll leave straight from the camping trip to begin our journey home. First stop is cousins on Nathan's side in Utah. It will be the first time many of my kids have seen Utah. Then we'll spend 8 days making our way home seeing Yellowstone, Mt. Rushmore, Little House on the Prarie, Nauvoo, St.Louis, and Nashville. The last two will be merely places to sleep more than a site-seeing stop. If all goes as planned we should arrive home on July 25, just in time to spend a few weeks watching the summer Olympics.

If last summer was the boringest summer ever, this one should make up for it. :) Every Spring I start looking at tickets and decide they are too expensive and say we'll go next year. The next spring the same thing happens. Thus it's been 6 years. Every year the tickets go up and we have another child to pay for so we just haven't done it. Only Kylie and Madalyn remember Mama and Papa's home (the home I grew up in) and my siblings. From Spencer on down they don't even know their aunts and uncles. That's 5 kids who haven't seen them or remember them. Every summer and Christmas and plenty of times in between my whole family gets together without us. It's time we went.
We are super excited. I love planning things like this so I am in my element. I have charts galore dictating who does a report on which state and national park to who will pick the restaurant (which have already been picked thanks to "Taco Bells in Mobile, AL" feature on Google maps. I don't know how people planned trips without the Internet.) We have our motels booked, travel bingo cards printed out, Friend magazines downloaded to CD (I'm not mp3 savvy yet), and Madalyn has even calculated exactly how many pieces of bread we'll need for sandwiches along the way. I'm getting started on stocking meals for Nathan in the freezer and plan to do the yard work the day before we leave. We still have lots to do, but it's coming along. Time has never flown faster. I can't believe how much there is to do. Every hour I'm adding more to my to-do list. At least it's given us something exciting to do this spring. The only bad thing about this whole trip is leaving poor Nathan behind. I'll miss Father's Day, Fourth of July, and our anniversary. He's such a good sport about it and is wholly supportive. I love him so much.
Well, it's back to work for me. It's our last day of school and we're cleaning out notebooks and having a party. Then I need to get busy on trip things. By the way, the trip is mostly finalized but if we're passing through your town and you'd like to host a bunch of weary travellers, let me know. I might be able to work you in and you might be able to help us save on hotels. (I am trying to keep it cheaper than flying, which is harder than I thought.) Also, if you have some great travelling tips (especially for Kaitlyn and Makenna), fun game ideas, or tips about the places we're stopping, I'd love to hear them. One question comes to mind right away: We have about 1 hour to see the Grand Canyon. What should we see? Should we drive along E Rim Drive? Take a shuttle tour? See the visitor center? It's been a long time since I've been there so I can't remember. Thanks!