The Great Road Trip | Days 7 & 8

The last two days of our trip were pretty predictable. We were driving and driving......and driving. Overall, from our little home to Portland, it takes about 20 hours to get there or back. I've only driven it straight through a few times in my life and I'm fine with not trying to accomplish that feat yet again. I'm getting to old for stuff like that. All nighters and driving in the dark? No thanks. My eyes just can't handle that like they used to. (I sound old...)

Saturday morning we packed up our bags and hit the road. Our half way goal is always Twin Falls, ID. Saturday was like most days on the road except for one little thing.....It was our 6 year wedding anniversary. 6 years. I found it pretty fitting to be out on the open road the day we celebrate 6 years of marriage together. There's just something about being in a car together, just driving. You can read about our past anniversaries here, here, here. Looks like I failed to blog about it for a few of years.

These past 6 years have been incredible. I am very blessed to have a wonderful marriage. We own our home. We get to do life as parents and raise Marin. We are able to provide for each other and support one another. I cannot imagine waking up every morning and not living life with Ryan.

On our trip, we spoke of what we want the next year to look like. I am very goal-oriented, so conversations like that always get my brain going. We talked about when we would want to start trying to have another child. We talked about jobs. We talked about playing music again and how much we miss it. We talked about health. I want to be able to do life with this amazing man for a very long time.

Over the past few years, we have celebrated our anniversary with pie. It seemed only fitting to find the local Shari's and partake in a tradition while we were on the road. I had the Sour Cream Lemon pie and Ryan has the Smores pie. Add a cup of coffee and I'm set.

The rest of the trip consisted of driving, driving, and driving. We stopped at many questionable gas stations. We ate too much junk. I totally nerded out and started reading the Outlander series. I know...I know....It was very good to pull into our driveway and finally arrive home. Picking up Marin from the Grandparent's house was something we had been looking forward to all week. Marin is making sure that we don't go anywhere for a while. Next time, she's coming with us.

It is good to be back and to slowly get back into the swing of things. I need vacations like this. It helps me focus on all of the other areas of my life. Next vacation though...I want a lot less driving and a lot more beach.

Thoughts on Driving

Last week, we hit the road. No work for an entire week and the only thing in front of us were farms, the promise of BBQ from little hole in the wall places, and the realization that we didn't really have anything pulling us back to work. Paradise. 

I love road trips. I love the time that I get to think, to sort out all of things sitting dormant inside of me, and to dream about the details and future that I only get to grasp every once in a while when life slows down a bit and the office life isn't dragging me down. I was counting down to this trip for weeks, months. The countdown began somewhere around 80 days to go or so. I needed a vacation. We needed a vacation. 

We had one plan in mind: to visit this shop, where vintage dreams come true and where my creativity seemed to have a fire lit underneath it. 

Driving somewhere we've never been forces me to find some clarity. I wrote lists upon lists. Inspiration hit me like a freight train. After the last few months, I needed creativity to pulse through my veins once again. I needed to not sit at a desk for countless hours a day, all the while allowing my dreams to sit quietly next to me. 

This book challenged me to my core. 

It rained nearly most of our trip but I didn't mind. Rain has been a massive force in my life. It has washed me clean, metaphorically and literally, for many years when I lived in the northwest. It is the sign of creativity, a sort of nostalgic sigh of the life I once had and the life I now am blessed enough to live.