So a lot of my friends wonder how we travel so much. How do we afford it. Besides the fact that it's a big priority the truth is I usually score huge deals.

As usually we're doing our summer trip to hawaii. This time I scored roundtrip deals for $320/per person. Incredible, especially considering I'm flying out of one city and back into another. How'd it happen? Well I had $150 credit each for me and the two kids so our $219 one way ticket cost us $69/each. And our return ticket was $249. And that's means we're going to hawaii for $960 for 3 people for 10 days. We don't usually pay for a hotel or rental car. We tend to eat at home quite a bit and pack lunches for the zoo and beach. So my entire trip to hawaii will likely be under $1500 for 10 days for 3 people. I'm not "vacationing" like most with a hotel, car, and eating out.

February was the same thing when we went to Hawaii. I spent $209 one way and used miles coming back from hawaii. That meant we likely spent if I had to guess under $1000 for 10 days in hawaii. For those not in the same situation a lot of savings can be had. How? I always tell people the cheapest tickets to Hawaii no matter where you are is April and October. If you watch the deals they'll hit and from the east coast of the US you can go for around $600 round trip during those season. You need to fly usually on a Tuesday through Thursday.

I'd also not necessarily package a car or hotel with the flights because sometimes it's cheaper to do a "hacker" fare and cobble together as I did 2 one way tickets. A lot of times it's cheaper to check out one way tickets and buy them on different airlines or use miles on the very expensive day of travel. I have a friend whose into mileage runs and tells me to value dollars at 2 cents per mile. Truth is I can usually beat that because I've mostly saved it for Hawaii at Christmas the most expensive time to travel.

That being said I also bought DH and kids ticket to see his parents in Canada yesterday. Roundtrip the tickets were $260 per person. I paid a slight premium because he could have gone for $210 but the hours were terrible and DH refused to get in at midnight and leave at 6 am. Instead I bought tickets arriving at 12 pm and leaving at 7 pm. FWIW usually we buy the cheapest but it's the first time the kids will be without me and I decided to cut him some slack. Plus to get the $210 I would have been again using a hacker fare of alaska airlines going for $83 and coming back on air canada for $126. It pays to do some permutations of traveling by air. Searching by roundtrip usually allows the airlines to price your tickets on their highest fare. Even the $260 had come up as $279 when I checked on round trip tickets versus booking 2 one ways on the same airline.

Right now we're on a roadtrip. We spent 3 days on the road before arriving at my BIL. We did eat out but we minimized it by eating buying subway one day eating at a taco stand for dinner another night total $9. Also we arrived and knew we had two days of musuems planned so we bought groceries for the 5 days and enough food to make sandwiches for 2 days. We also tried to fill up everyday a costco a huge benefit of being a member is costco always has the cheapest gas and very cheap food if you are driving.

Anyway I'm off to enjoy my vacation. Any other tips? I just wanted to post because as I was booking tickets I realized it sounds like we spend a ton on vacations every year. But if not for the flights to canada, and if I were going we'd be driving. We really are pretty good to go to hawaii twice in 1 year for under $2000 for three people. Then to include canada for under $2800 sounds very reasonable. Most people who fly places are spending easily double or triple that.

Happy Valentine's Day! We had a great steak dinner at home and are prepping to leave for vacation. We leave tomorrow morning and I'm almost packed.

Couple of thoughts I read that Kanye West is $53 million in personal debt. Is that even possible? I mean isn't he married to someone extremely wealthy and they make a fortune selling themselves on reality tv? Am I mistaken that I think I read they made $30 million last year alone? How can he be in debt? I mean yes they live lavishly but I thought they pretty much get everything free to "try" and sell for the merchant and they are constantly selling products? I wonder how that all ends? Bankruptcy?

RIP Justice Scalia. I hate to say it but it's a little ridiculous that the Republican party wants to wait a year to fill his position on the supreme court. They need to suck it up and accept the fact that he passed and let the nomination go through unless the person is completely horrible. If Obama is smart he'll nominate someone quickly that is already a judge that had a fast and smooth vetting previously. I wonder if he'd dare put another woman on the court? I know the front runner is the Indian judge but I wouldn't mind another woman.

Reading a post about net worth on the forums made me think about time versus money. What my DH and I are doing right now is probably costing us a lot of money. How much? Well at least $45k in salary this year and another $100k next year. Then add in the fact we're going to likely burn through $75k in expenses from not working for 10 months plus tuition for DH's program. And we're out $220k without counting the lost opportunity cost of us not saving some and investing it.

Our kids are 5 and 3. So right now my DH is getting the opportunity to enjoy them in a way many parents can't. I'm fortunate to have enjoyed them immensely until now. He's getting to experience volunteering in class, doing field trips, etc.

I'm not sure our kids understand the sacrifice we are making right now. Or that our lifestyle changed moving cross country. We've actually mentioned to our older DK1 that we no longer have an income. That we are watching our pennies and we can't buy everything under the sun.

But the truth is that we lived very much like we did before. The only change is that we didn't shop as many sales/coupons for groceries. We ate out maybe 2x/week instead of 1x/week. We ate at more expensive places instead of places with deals. But otherwise we never shopped a lot, still give the girls extracurriculars, still go out and do experiences we did before like the zoo/aquarium/etc. We've curbed our weekend roadtrips, if we were working we'd likely have gone on 1-2 weekend trip.

But I honestly don't think our kids think our life is any different. They do understand we have a much nicer, bigger SFH with a garage that is warmer. But that's due to the fact we just moved somewhere cheaper that we could afford a home. Even if we were working we'd still have rented the same place.

I wonder if our kids will understand the huge financial risk we took when they were young? Or understand ever the financial repercussions we've done by quitting and moving? I don't know, but I hope they think we did something amazing to change our lives.

But I do know my Dk1 understands those less fortunate. And we are continuing to volunteer at shelters helping to host birthday parties for children who don't have homes. She understand that there are so many others who have so much less. And at this time of year we should be grateful for having so much.

I'm still excited for the season and while there isn't a shelter party we're going to help make goody bags instead this month. I hope that when they look back on holidays they remember these sort of things. I always remember and give my children money for the red salvation army buckets because more than once my grandfather told me he and his family were on the receiving end of the Thanksgiving and Christmas food baskets. He always gave me money to put in as does my mom till this day. If not for their generosity I don't know where I'd be.

I don't know why more people aren't excited about the holidays. I am super excited and thrilled. We are going out to buy a Christmas tree and stand. We bought our first set of holiday lights and yes we could wait to buy them on sale after Christmas but I feel like this is it. There are so many wonderful things going on and it's a very fun time of year.

I have to say that all I've heard is people complaining however. They are tired of driving somewhere for Thanksgiving. They are tired of shopping, buying, and wrapping, gifts. They are tired and don't want to decorate.

My thoughts? If you don't want to go anywhere or do anything don't. We've spent years waiting for the chance to decorate our house and have a tree and start traditions. BUT it's not cheap and I can see how it can be tiring.

We're hosting my BIL and FIL for thanksgiving. We're smoking a turkey, sweet potatoes (2 different kinds), 2 different stuffings, cranberry sauce, hot potato salad, broccoli, apple pie, and duff. I made the stuffing today, the cranberry yesterday, the sweet potatoes tomorrow and potato salad and maybe the duff.

We're hosting my parents for Christmas then seeing DH's family for New Years. I'm pretty stoked with both events and I'm thinking rib roast with bone for Christmas. Not sure what my in-laws will make for new years.

I haven't started Christmas shopping, but I did buy few things online for the kids and DH as a surprise. I can see how it can get out of control.

But if people don't want to spend a lot of money I can honestly say it can be done. Until now we've spent almost nothing on Christmas, New Years, and Thanksgiving (we used to go to a friend's house). So keep it simple and eat a regular mean and don't stress out. I wish I could say that in real life to people who seem out of their mind busy and crazy and exhausted. It's not even Thanksgiving yet.

Happy Thanksgiving. What are you doing?

I finally got around to tallying our road trip spending. Previously I had mentioned our road trip costs for the hotel. It was not bad for 28 days of being in hotels/camping = $1832.70. Less than $100/day and less than our mortgage and utilities.

However we spent $2257.39 on eating out and groceries for the month. And absurd amount but then we were not shopping sales, and eating out many, many meals. It would have cost more to have gotten hotel rooms with kitchens since we stayed in the cheapest places.

We also spent $696.36 on activities while traveling. Things like Niagara Falls Aerocar and Maid of the Mist. We also took a ferry to Mackinac Island and boat tour of picture rock national lakefront. We also biked Mackinac island and tubed in Leavenworth WA. All in it was a great deal I think.

Finally we spent $646.32 in gas driving cross country. We put on around 5000 miles driving from east to west coast. I think that's a pretty good deal.

All in I guess we spent $5432.77 for a 28 day vacation. Not bad around the cost of our normal monthly budget to be honest. Except we had a cool adventure and lots of memories. Could we had done it more frugally? Yes. We could have camped more and probably eaten at cheaper restaurants the whole way. But overall it was a nice vacation. We cheaped out on how we camped and hotels to indulge a bit more on eating out.

But now that we've moved I'm interested in our new budget.

I am vacationing in Hawaii with my kids and relaxing and enjoying doing nothing. The road trip was awesome and fun and amazing. But it was tiring, exhausting, and stressful in it's own way. The last week of apartment hunting and learning our way around a new city was exciting but hard with two small children. Worrying about making the right decision but knowing it's a rental.

Also I'll admit it's a bit of a hard pill to suck knowing we are "renting". Easy to say and hard to do. Realizing that we hadn't rented in over decade. It's not just the money but answering to someone else!

Anyway though as I'm in Hawaii I'm enjoying my family and my mom keeps saying "oh I'm spending so much money with everyone visiting". You LAL, your brother, his family, etc. She says I'm retired on a fixed income. I point out her income with my dad's make them ineligible to contribute to a Roth IRA. And my parents still "contribute" to a backdoor roth at 84 and 62 years old! They draw on pensions, IRAs, SS, and investments, and make $200k/year and my mom is worrying about money.

They own two homes free and clear and she's worried about not having enough. She says the bills seem more than her monthly money coming in and she doesn't want to touch a penny of investments. I want to smack her. I want her to SPEND the money on herself and do whatever the HELL she wants. I keep telling her to spend, spend, spend. Enjoy it. Bathe in it. I don't know go on every wild and crazy trip or buy a Tesla or something ridiculous. But the idea of her spending her money I think she's going to die with it.

Yeah okay readers I know perhaps that's her pleasure but I don't want to inherit that much money. I would rather have had some cool story about my mom sky diving at 85 because she's spending her money.

I have a lot of my mom's financial personality I can't help it. My DH has his parents and they are the same way. We were raised to it and it's hard for us not to be this way. But my DH is pushing me along the route to stop worrying about money. He's talked about us not having income for a year. He's talked about us not saving anymore for retirement as aggressively. That perhaps it's time for us to cutback and relax the purse strings.

I'm starting to believe him. I think the purpose of money is to enjoy your life. Whether it be working or not. My DH pointed out in a recent conversation that we've saved and I've planned as though we are stopping work in 10 years. That he'll sit around and "retire" early like Mr Money Mustache. The truth? He doesn't want to. He doesn't want to stop working at 45 or even now. He likes to work and wants to keep doing it. Being able to say FU to a company is great, and he likes having that freedom. But he isn't ready to stop working.

So I guess I have to relax and start to stop worrying if we have enough. I have to stop and smell the roses. I think we'll have enough even scaling back by age 55. Beside if I don't I might miss a moment.

I am trying to convince my mom to not miss a moment either. Here is my perfect moment recently.



It really was great trip.

So we had basically a month without our mortgage. Not including utilities and insurance and other stuff we were going to be spending $2500 on just the mortgage and property taxes. So I figured if we spent around there or less we'd come out ahead.

Our total hotel/camping spending came out to $1832.70 for 27 days and that included two mistakes and a huge overspend the night before we left. I also did not deduct my $50 gift card from choice hotels for two nights stay.

First off I'd like to say camping is a super cheap vacation. We spent 9 days camping for a total of $268.33. That includes paying $27.13 for a campsite one night we didn't use. So we should have spent $241.20 on average $30/night. We spent 18 days in hotels for $1654.81 averaging $87/night.

However with the hotels we made two mistakes one in Niagara Falls leaving early and paying $44 for a night we didn't stay. Second the night before we left we were staying by the airport. Unfortunately the Rodeway Inn I booked only had smoking rooms which were unacceptable and which I was refunded our money. But we had to scramble literally in the Rodeway Inn's parking lot for another place to stay on a Friday night before Saturday flights. I ended up staying at a ridiculous DoubleTree Hotel for $159.20. We had made a conscious decision to leave the car at our new place and wanted to stay within shuttle distance of the airport since our flights were at 8 am.

But overall we did well for the month. I was hoping to stay under $1500 but $1800 for the month was a great deal. That leaves me with I budgeted $1500 for food for the month eating out and stuff.

I am going to guess we may have gone over $1500 for experiences and food. I was trying to stay under $100/day but we'll see. Traveling and buying as you go makes food very expensive. Somewhat like trying to sell a home and move, you are eating from the pantry but also not shopping in bulk or sales. Instead trying to cobble together meals and buy stuff to compliment what you have rather than truly meal plan.

So our budget has been pretty blown these past few months. I shudder at trying to run the numbers.

Interesting question whether a person should vacation now before retirement or later after retirement. Should a person be fiscally responsible earlier in life or relax a bit and travel and spend money earlier?

We did the more prudent thing in our 20s and traveled less than if we had been spendy. With our time and income we could have easily have traveled more. But we didn't. We were financially prudent. I sort of regret it.

But doing so allowed us to do other things like stay at home, travel now, move, etc. So it was a conscious trade off. 10 years of being "frugal" and responsible for this next year of being "indulgent".

But do I regret not traveling? Yes and No. I think I once read that when you are young you have time and no money, but as you get older you have money and no time. I find that to be incredibly true.

We have the money now to travel or relax and but with kids the time is way to precious and there is less of it. Our trips now are kid oriented instead of what we would do. My big trip I wish we had done was Macchu Picchu and Galapago. But who knows.

Do you think travel when young or travel after retirement? I will say we did travel quite a bit still just not as much as we could have. We did both domestic and international travel.

Lots has happened and I'm still really busy. Right now we are still on "vacation" but there is a lot to accomplish. I can't believe we did it. We traveled cross country with the kids and left everything we knew behind including a job and money. The house sold smoothly and we are in a new phase of life.

But I have to say our trip was amazing and spectacular. It was a once in a lifetime experience and something I don't know we'll ever have the opportunity to do again. I hope I can get these photos uploaded. This has been a struggle so I apologize for the non sequential order of photos.

I want to say we unfortunately missed glacier national park because of a forest fire. But we did other great things. I also have to say my perfect photo came at Bighorn National Forest (for everyone in Wyoming you live in BEAUTIFUL place). But I loved the Grand Tetons probably the most.

And once we crossed into Washington as we drove through the Rockies my DH said he felt he'd come home. He missed seeing his Rockies and felt happier. I can't explain the feeling of belonging. You can't tell me the Pacific NW has bad weather because I embrace it. It just fit us. I can't explain this feeling.

Sounds nuts but quite a few relatives live in the area and have told me they love it. They miss Hawaii but at the same time it feels like home. And I know exactly what they are saying. I felt it. I stepped into a place where I belonged. And my DH just kept pointing out stuff he'd done as a child in the area. I think we're home for better or worse. This is it for us.

Badlands national park

Badlands National Park with Car

Bighorn National Forest

Bison herd Custer State Park

Bison by our car

Corn Palace Mitchell

Coeur d'Alene

Crazy Horse Memorial

Bighorn National Forest Lake we camped at. I cried when I saw this. I actually have a picture of the family standing there in awe. It was a perfect moment. I'll consider uploading maybe later.

Grand Tetons

Mammoth Hot Springs

Mount Rushmore

Mackinac Island (Cool no vehicles)

Fort Mackinac

Soo Locks

Gouda!!!

Picture Rocks Lakefront Amazing

Old Faithful

Crystal Cave

I'll summarize what our costs were when I figure it out. I will also discuss our situation for food and arriving.

Quick note my neighbors listed their house yesterday for $729k. Exact same layout, size, age, and condition. One difference is side by side parking instead of tandem. I'm curious if they can land a buyer quickly.

I wrote about how it can be hard to break an old habit. My DH and I were both raised on cheap places to stay. This trip though since we are staying in hotels for 28 days I've tried to minimize costs since we are eating out a meals pretty much. But of course we are camping for about a week broken up. Which will help bring the average down. But I am trying to stay below a $100 a day for food and $100 day for hotels. I also told my DH if we are below $100 on the hotel it makes the food for the day more palatable spending $100. Which isn't easy for a family of four three meals a day. If we were staying in one city a guaranteed hotel with a fridge and not packing up daily we could nake sandwiches. But the daily grind of driving makes it harder and not knowing where we are staying.

The first night for $62 was really a great deal for the red roof inn. Great location off the freeway and they took dogs and free wifi. The dog issue is a pain in the butt. With a dog when traveling you are worrying about them barking snd disturbing thneighbors. We arrived around 10 pm and left at 630 am. So literally a place to sleep that was safe and clean and convenient. It was very clean and exterior was nice. And very kind about the dog. I was not about to stay any where I'd have to sneak him in. Really a great deal.

But our hotel in Niagara Falls was cheap and terrible. It was supposed to be $48 all in buy we lwft after one night so it was $96 for a hotel that said wifi but didn't work. And was quite dirty. But niagara falls is a tourist destination so we probably should have spent
more. Our really bad mistake for a place to stay.

The econolodge in bay city michigan was great for $59.60. It had wifi, laundry, even a hot breakfast of waffles, bagels, etc. Very clean and easy to get on and off the freeway. My DH agreed it was a good pick. I'm not sure I guess a breakfast for a family of 4 at McDonalds would run $10?

The k royal inn in st igance michgian was not a bad deal for $71.6. The first room we had smell so they switched us without argument. There was a pool and laundry to use. And the breakfast while not hot was fine. A little pricey i felt but a tourist town during peak season to go to Mackinac island.

Then we were supposed to stay at America's Best inn but due a mixup we were switched to the Best Western in Sault Ste Marie. The best western was really great. It was the same price because of the mixup so we paid $63.41 for a very clean, upscale compared to what we had been staying ing. The breakfast was hot and nice. A bargain.

We then camped at picture rock national lakefront for $14. Can't be beat, but the flies nearly ate us alive. We barely got out of there.

We moved onto Green Bay where we stayed at the Radisson by the airport. It was $90.96, more than I wanted to pay but after reading reviews online of the motel 6 we decided to go with something we felt was safer and cleaner. It was way to high class. It was attached to the Oneida Casino and very nice. But no breakfast and it was a pain in the ass to park because of the casino. But it was really big, nice, and spacious. One major negative was the lack of guest laundry.

Then we headed to Minneapolis and stayed at a Holiday Inn Express by the Mall of America for $84.88. Again more than we wanted, but this was by far the best deal. They were super accomodating, brought us a fridge for the room, and just really clean and helpful. The laundry of course was super efficient taking credit cards to boot. The breakfast was hot and varied. And the location near the mall was great.

We then ended up at the Ramada Inn in Mitchell, SD. OMG it was terrible and worse because we paid $76.22. Part of it was how small the town was but we wanted a shorter drive instead of Sioux Falls to Badlands National Park. It did have a hot breakfast but the hotel was dirty, disgusting, and beetles everywhere in the room. Tons of bugs and just overall gross. Granted I know from reviews no hotel in Mitchell is very clean, so from reviews I had read I was expecting bad. But I can't imagine how much worse some of the cheaper places were. At least we got to see the Corn Palace and have a shorter drive to the badlands.

So far we'd spent $619 on hotels for 9 days and we were heading into the camping portion of our trip. I'll talk about what we saw and how we camped later.

It has been worth every penny. What we've seen and experienced has been unbelievable. Until you've driven cross country the vastness of the country doesn't hit you. It unbelievable the beauty and diversity of our country. I am so happy to have had this experience and I know my kids won't really remember it. I am having a fabulous time experiencing it with them.

I haven't had time to do photos but I'll tell you what happened. We left town around 3 pm. Exhausted we had dinner in Syracuse at Dinosaur BBQ and stayed overnight in Rochester at Red Roof Inn. It cost us $62 includes taxes for the night, took dogs, and very clean and comfortable.

We left early the next morning for Niagara Falls, ON. My DH drove on to Pearsons Toronto Airport to ship our dog. He went to DH's parents until the end of August. I believe it cost us $250 to ship as cargo on top of the $90 international health certificate.

We stayed at the Crystal Inn in Niagara Falls and it was terrible. We had booked 2 nights thinking we needed extra time because of the dog, but decided to move on the next day. Unfortunately I booked the hotel through Booking.com and was unable to change the reservation. So the $96 we spent for 2 night was $96 for 1 night in a really crappy hotel. Oh well say la vie.

I will say we had a great time in Niagara Falls and we did the Whirlpool Aero Car and Hornblower Cruise. The kids loved both and my DH had a blast though he's been dozens of times to Niagara Falls. He thoroughly enjoyed himself seeing the kids get soaked on the boat and loving the night scene at the Falls. We had actually gone back about 3 years ago, but our oldest didn't remember a thing. Kids make sometimes the same trip more pleasurable having experienced it through new eyes.

We drove the next day to Bay City, MI and just spent the night at the Econolodge at the rate of $59.60 night all taxes included. It was very clean and much bigger than we are used to. This was just a place to rest as we continued to St. Ignace, MI.

We stayed at St Ignace overnight so we could do Mackinac Island. We stayed at K Royal Motel for $71.60. It was fine. The real gem was going to Mackinac Island. The island has no transportation other than horse carriage or bikes or walking. So we rented 2 bikes and 2 bike carriers and did the 8 miles loop of the island. Our kids love biking and so do we and it was great. Took us 3 hours including stopping for lunch but the pictures and pleasure was amazing.

We also walked the Fort Mackinac and the town. Even the ferry ride over from St Ignace was great. We went under the "mighty mac" Mackinaw Bridge. FWIW it's a lot easier to go from St. Ignace than Mackinaw City. The ferry ride is only 15 minutes, except when they go under the Bridge.

The food along the way has been interesting an exceptional. I'll post photos later. But it's truly been a pleasure.

Next up was the Soo Locks in Sault Ste Marie. It was something cool for the kids and we enjoyed seeing a part of Canada my DH's never been too. We've actually done a boat tour of the Yangtze River which was very similar but on a much larger scale.

Then we're moving onto camping at Picture Rock National Lakefront. I can't wait.

Okay Ideas people. Ideas of places to eat, visit, or stay, or anything I can't miss. Here's a list of cities I've ironed out we're doing. AAA is driving me nuts trying to get me to iron out my itinerary. I'm not that sort of person honestly. I am more a "well see when we get there kind of person." And a book a hotel couple of hours before we need it depending on when we make it.

Syracuse
Niagara OT
Saginaw, MI
St Ignace
Picture Rock National Lakefront
Green Bay WI
Minneapolis
Sioux Falls
Wall SD
MT Rushmore
Sheridan
Yellowstone
Missoula
Glacier National Park
Spokane
Yakima

This trip is planned on us being on the road for 3 weeks. OMG in way it's insane. And at the same time I am so psyched. I love hearing people's places to eat and see. PLEASE chime in anything. I'm debating going back to blogspot to make it easier for me to post pictures of stuff.

Be ready for a cool photo montage if you help me plan awesome stuff to see or do.

Okay another reiteration of the road trip. I am running into trouble with AAA trip tik. I went into get a plan and they want me to book hotels. Ugh. Considering that we aren't even sure of the date we are leaving (tentatively July 7th) my DH is hesitant to even book refundable hotels because what happens if we leave a day late? Or two days? Then we have to cancel everything and start from scratch.

I don't know what to do. I feel like we have to tighten everything up closer to the deadline. I'm thinking I'll just tell AAA the prospective hotels since we are just unsure.

So we've decided to not take the dog. Although we may take him to Toronto to ship him back to my in-laws. Or we may drive to NYC and ship him from there. Again we're unsure about this timing.

We've ruled out unfortunately sesame place and hershey park since this weekend. We went away this weekend to an amusement park and DK1 had a good time but DK2 was a little too small and scared. So we've decided we'll skip parks for this year and instead do other stuff.

So where are we headed?

Niagara Falls
Mackinc Island - yes we are doing Michigan Upper Peninsula
Painted Rock National Lakefront (UP)
Green Bay
Minneapolis
Sioux Falls
Rapid City (mount rushmore)
Yellowstone
Butte
Missoula
Spokane

So suggestions or thoughts? I feel like Barney from how I met your mother, saying "this is going to be legendary. High five!"

I know my kids won't recall much but I have blurbs of my first real vacation with my mom at age 5 going to disneyland. We got on a plane with our family and went to disneyland, SF, and LV for a 3 city trip on the cheap. Budget all the way, but having a great time. It was incredible. I still remember meeting my cousin and seeing disney. So I'm thinking my kiddo #1 will have so memories of this trip. This is our opportunity of a lifetime.

I have an antedote about my mom. She always says "i took out a loan from the credit union for like $500 or maybe $1k to go on the disney trip. It was supposed to be a trip of a lifetime." This is the woman who got divorced and cut up her CC so she wouldn't abuse them and take the easy way out. But she saved and planned this trip for us right before I started kindergarten. Just for us. She took amazing risks both personally and financially and I believe as we make this trip and leap I'm about to do the same thing. I wouldn't be where I am today without her. And without her teachings and guidance I certainly wouldn't be trying something so crazy. Make plans but sometimes you have to take the risk and grab the opportunity when it comes because it may never come again.

I know SA readers probably would have chastised her but sometimes you don't know the strength of the person. I tell this story because right now I am looking for the strength to go through with this huge change we are making.

So we are between a rock and a hard place. We are deciding whether to take our dog with us on our road trip. Our choices as we see it.

First he comes with us but the is left in new city upon LAL and DH parting ways for august. He'll go into a kennel. Then my DH will get him when he gets back. This we hesitate since we are unsure how he'll react to a new kennel.

Two he stays where we lived for 4 weeks in the kennel we normally board him in. 4 weeks is longer than we usually do, we usually do 3 weeks. But it could be longer if my DH doesn't get a place that's pet friendly to live. It's a long time.

Three is put him on a plane and send him to my MIL. Ideally I'd like to do this. We did this with our last dog when we moved cross country 10 years ago. And my DH would pick him up when he drives cross country again in August. Now the only issue is convincing my MIL to do it.

Of course traveling with a pet cross country means that we'll be checking into hotels and then sightseeing. I have no idea what it'll be like. Possibly influencing our decision will be whether he can go to the national parks easily.

Any ideas appreciated.

Okay newly update road trip itinerary. We've been working on refining our plans. We agreed to cut out eastern canada. My DH has promised we'll come back and do a 1-2 week vacation out this way. So we are just heading west.

We are split now between going to Sesame Place, yes now we've potentially added PA. Then Hershey Park for a day then cleveland.

Now if we skip Sesame Place we are going to do Niagara Falls which we've done quite a few times but my DH loves the area. Then we'll cut through Sarnia and head to Lansing, MI. Lansing, MI is where we'll meet up in either case.

Because from there we are heading to Mackinaw Island and the upper peninsula. We plan on doing a day at Mackinaw and then a day at Picture Rocks national park. Then heading to Green Bay and then potentially Minneapolis.

Then Sioux falls and the rest of our journey will be to Mt Rushmore, Yellowstone, then depending on timing either Boise, ID or Missoula, MT? Give a shout about either place.

We may also detour depending on our timing and being sick of the car to Glacier National Park. Again this is all happening on the fly and I'm trying to iron it out. We'll figure it out after this weekend and then get a trip tik from AAA.

I am so excited. Looking at the map and dreaming of where we are going is almost as thrilling as doing it. Someone once said part of the thrill of traveling is the dreaming you do while traveling.

Okay people across the US give me ideas. This is a sort of list of towns I was thinking we could road trip and I've mapped out miles, driving, and times but can't format it. So instead here's the list and we start in Yarmouth Canada and drive the way the list goes downwards.

Yarmouth Canada
Halifax
PEI
Saint John's
Bangor Maine
Quebec City
Montreal
Ottawa
Toronto
Ann Arbor or Detroit or Cleveland (similar distances from Toronto)
Chicago
Madison WI or should we go to Des Moines IA?
La Crosse WI
Sioux Falls
MT Rushmore (3 days)
Sheridan
Yellowstone (3 days)
Missoula
Spokane

And we should be around 21-22 days on the road. I calculated 20 mpg and 4287 miles driven so we will spend at least $500 on gas and wear and tear on the car. Of course hotels and eating out will cost more.

But am I going the right route? I know it seems like a lot of cities and little driving but I was thinking no more than 4 hours a day driving for the kids.

People help and any suggestions appreciated.