Road Trip 2008!!

Hello! Simmie here...

Here's my attempt at keeping a blog for this trip. In case you aren't sure, we're driving from Chicago to the Grand Canyon. Here's a quick overview:

Friday: Chicago, IL to Boulder, CO.
Saturday: Boulder, CO
Sunday: Boulder, CO to Moab, UT
Monday: Moab, UT to the Grand Canyon, AZ
Tuesday: the Grand Canyon
Wednesday: The Grand Canyon to Santa Fe, NM
Thursday: Santa Fe, NM to Denver, CO
Friday: Denver, CO to the Badlands, SD
Saturday: The Badlands, SD to Minneapolis, MN
Sunday: Minneapolis, MN to Chicago, IL

Monday: I'll be not functioning at work in Laurel, MD.

This was created for a couple of reasons:

1. My mother is possibly going to have an aneurysm wondering where I am as we trek across the middle to almost west part of the United States. Possibly this will help quell some of her anxiety.

2. I have a compulsive need to extensively document everything I do when I'm on vacation. Usually this involves me writing until my hand falls off in a little journal which then I give to my mother at the end of the trip to read. She claims she reads it, but I suppose I have never given her a quiz so she could be lying to me. However, since we've entered the digital age and I had to bring my computer on this trip to do my homework (yay grad school!) I figured why not give this a shot. But you are going to be out in the wilderness! How will you access the internet? Fear not my friends. In what I think to be a somewhat sad state, even our campgrounds have Wifi! What is a somewhat sad note on what our lives have become, is a good chance for you. Hopefully every night or so I can update you all on what we have done with our day (hint: driving) and perhaps share some fun anecdotes on the state of our physical and mental stability. Our trip is only 10 days long so I can't promise too much, but I figure this is worth a try.

It's 11:41 PM on Thursday. We're leaving at 5:00 AM tomorrow morning. We appear to be thoroughly prepared thanks in large part to Elise and her outstanding planning. We've got food, a tent, supplies up the wazoo, and a half a tank of gas (what? It's a hybrid).

Tomorrow morning we take on the first 1000 miles of our trip from Chicago, IL to Boulder, CO. If we make it, hopefully we'll still be friends. Time for bed and let the driving commence!