Already

Planning. For those of you who know me, this will come as no surprise. I am always anticipating the next "something". Trip, activity, thought, whatever. As I have wrote before, ALL of Jerry's family (including girlfriends) are coming down to Texas on Christmas day, then all of us save Brian and (hopefully by that time) his fiancee are headed over to Florida. I have planned that out to the full extent of my ability without being too pushy on others. Trying to accommodate everyones desires and expressed interest in places to see/do/go. I have done everything but book the house we're staying at and my father in law took care of that, as it was "his fault" we did not get booked into the free accommodations he had planned on but put off for so long they were no longer available.
So onto my next trip. Which, at this point I really am starting to think is going to be next summer. Sad as it may be, I have no one to travel with, besides my kids. And everyone knows, as much as you love your kids, it's a lot of work! Being as it is, I started thinking "I really don't want this summer to be a rush trip like the others! I want to see things stop and do things!" So I set out my trusty map and starting plotting out points. Thus far the plan is to drive straight across Nevada from Utah, hitting Lake Tahoe. We ran into some people on their way back from Tahoe last summer with a passel of kids. They all seem to have had a great time. One of Jerry's best friends lives somewhere north of Sacramento, so I figure we make a bee line into that state and make our way up the coast. Sure, more expensive - but how much fun! I'm hoping to stop in on MY best friend in Beaverton, OR, (hopefully she'll be home and not up in Canada visiting her family!) next then head on up to Seattle. I've always wanted to see the Space Needle. I have no idea why, I don't even know what the purpose of the building is, I just have. Then take our first ferry ride over to Victoria, BC. Both Michael and Jerry have exclaimed over how beautiful it is, might as well check it out, right? After a few days whale watching and what not, we'll head on over to the Jones Cousin reunion in Revelstoke, BC. After the reunion we'll head on up to Whitecourt, AB with Michael, Jenie and their kids for a couple weeks. Last stop in Canada will be Raymond, AB to visit the rest of the family. This year on the trip home I plan on taking the LONG way across the top of Montana then down through the Dakota's, Nebraska and Kansas. I have a map I'm trying to cross all the states off of, ya know.
I'm thinking Jerry may be willing to accompany me all the way to California, probably even Victoria. Depends on what his work load is like at the time. Lately he's been meeting with "big" companies like Nextel, Sprint and NASCAR. They are all really impressed with the equipment one of his companies can create. Sprint and NASCAR paid for him and a few others from that particular office to go up to the races in Kansas a few weeks ago with all access passes. Jerry, who rarely express excitement over anything actually took pictures he was so interested in it all. They have been invited out again next weekend (nope, no amount of weaseling could convince him I also should go...bah!) to discuss what they can "do for each others business". Sounds very mafia to me ;) So I may be going it alone, as usual - but who knows, miracles have been known to happen.
Ha! After looking over this post, I noticed most of the places I intend to hit involve water. I think I may have a slight interest ... ya think?