More road trip planning

It's that time of the year again.

TMOART:15 is just around the corner.

If you haven't been around for very long, that stands for The Mother of All Road Trips: 2015 Edition. It's our annual (for the most part) road trip from here in Kansas to my parents' house in Pennsylvania, usually with a few (or a lot of) other stops thrown into the mix.

This year, we're keeping it simple. Renting the short bus last year cost us a small fortune, so we're taking my van this time - which means that luggage has to be kept to a minimum. Side trips are going to be eliminated due to finances and time and overcrowded seating arrangements. But we're still doing it. We're going to spend more time with my parents (including a reunion of all of my siblings, something which hasn't happened in a lot of years), more time relaxing and less time running around like idiots trying to see everything and do everything and run run run run constantly.

Of course, along with planning the actual itinerary comes planning for all of the crap that has to be done before we can even pull out of the driveway. There is a lot of stuff that we need to do first, things like an oil change in the van and weeding out the garden and flowerbeds and mowing the grass. And of course my constant obsession over the financial aspects of it, budgeting for gas and food and fun stuff and (please no) emergencies.

The lists are running rampant. On my phone. On scraps of paper. In my head. On my gigantic new-to-me white board calendar that I got in a thrift store in OKC earlier this week.

But the funny thing is that even now, as we get down to just over a week before we leave, I'm not spazzing out about it like I usually do. We've done these trips enough over the years that I know that no matter what, unexpected things are going to happen (remember The Great Flying Boulder Incident?) and we'll just make the most of it and have as much fun as possible before the reality of another school year starts less than 2 weeks after we get back.

The kids are excited to go, I'm more than excited to get away from reality for a while, my parents are looking forward to seeing the kids, and it'll be nice to have some real quality time with The Dude.

I'm so ready.