GoofyMom's Even Greater American Road Trip - 2008 - Updated 11/14 About This Page:

[GoofyMom]

Last year, my hubby Dan and I had the chance to road trip through basically Central USA. We drove to the Panhandle of Florida, then headed west to Texas and then north again through the Rockies and Black Hills to get home. We took it easy and just enjoyed ourselves. You can find my trip report about it http://www.passporterboards.com/foru...p-florida.html if you are so inclined.

The travelers: Dan and myself. Same as last year, the kids are old enough to leave at home alone now, so once again they were not invited.

The dates: Originally planned for September 10 – October 14, 2008. Unfortunately, we had to cut the trip short and we got home on October 8.

Where: Check out this map! This was our original route. We had to change it a bit and missed basically all of New England.


Why: Dan & I enjoyed our road trip last year so much that we wanted to do it again. But this time he was able to get more time off from work. So this time our trip was expanded to cover a lot more territory!

Planning: I don’t remember all the planning details. We started out by inviting ourselves to our good friends, Bill & Jan’s (LizardCop and his DW) home. Or maybe they invited us. I don't remember. Then a trip to Disney got worked into that. Then a trip up I-95 to spend time with more really good friends, Sue & Steve (rescuesk & her DH). We added a few PassPorter meets into the mix as time went by. We picked our dates and Dan requested time off, which was approved. Dan decided to make it a goal to drive through as many states as we could. The only one we couldn’t feasibly do was West Virginia because that would have meant a major detour. By the end of this trip, we were hoping to have been in 48 of the 50 states (only missing Alaska and West Virginia). It didn’t turn out that way, but we still managed to add a few new states to our list of conquests.

Monkey Wrenches: In June we had a monkey wrench thrown in to our plans. At first we didn’t think it would have any impact on our trip because it happened in early June. Dan and I were riding bicycles through the park on June 10th. He slowed down while I was shoulder checking and my front tire bumped his back tire. I fell over hard and ended up strapped onto a back board wearing a neck collar getting a ride to the Emergency Room in an ambulance.

A couple hours on that backboard was nearly cause to call Amnesty International - it felt like torture!

After x-rays and stitches, I was deemed ok and was released. Fast forward through the summer…. I was having a heck of a time recovering. Something happened to my pelvis in that crash and it made it extremely painful for me to walk and sometimes even just to sit. I visited my doctor a few times looking for pain relief and answers. It was getting to the point by August that we started looking into renting a wheelchair for our trip. Finally we thought we found the right drug, but shortly after starting it I started to have a bad reaction. I discontinued using the drug, but it had worked wonders and I felt that I wouldn’t need to get a wheelchair after all. Yeah. Cue Monkey Wrench #2. You’ll see that didn’t work out so well later. The final Monkey Wrench came while we were away. I developed a very nasty sore throat on October 2 and you’ll see how that affected our trip when I get to that point in the trip report.

Then of course, there were the hurricanes. We didn’t know if Hurricane Ike was going to have any impact on our trip. It’s projected path through the Gulf of Mexico kept changing and right up until September 9th we didn’t know if we would be able to drive to Florida’s Panhandle or if we would be in the middle of an evacuated area and not allowed to go there. Jan and I were hoping like crazy that it would fizzle out over Cuba, but as we all know, that didn’t work out. Fortunately for us, Ike took a left turn through the Gulf and it looked like it was going to hit Texas. (Again, I send to everybody who got impacted by Ike because I know some people will be recovering from it for a long time.)

So…. This was all cutting it very close and it was only a few days before our departure date that I was feeling well enough to start preparing for our trip. I bought $450 worth of groceries for the kids, had a hair appointment and finally got into Packing Mode and started packing up clothes, shoes, jackets, and various other paraphernalia that I thought we would need for a trip that would encompass Summer and Autumn and quite possibly early Winter weather.

The night of September 9th, Dan packed up the van with all the suitcases and Rubbermaid totes, his bicycle and his golf clubs, our winter survival gear, and all our maps and AAA guidebooks. All that was left to do was throw in our toothbrushes and start driving early the next morning!

Coming up.... Ummmm, it's a CANADIAN passport....