Pre-Trip

Without going into detail, I’ll say that the past few months are best described by one of my favorite Steinbeck quotes, from Travels with Charley: “In long-range planning for a trip, I think there is a private conviction that it won't happen.”

But we made it.  We’re here!

I recall reading somewhere that the unglamorous truth about conventional warfare is that it’s really just a huge logistics problem.  Our trip is no different.  We have a number of 'must-do’ events throughout the Summer – primarily weddings, bachelor(ette) parties, and family vacations.  At least one per month.  These events defined the legs of the trip, and we built everything from there.  With a ton of flexibility, of course.  Let’s just say it was complicated to organize.

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Two slight disasters before the trip started.

1. We have two cats – Shacks and Chaos – that had to be flown from New York to Sacramento. They will be staying with Kristen’s parents while we are on our trip.  Kristen’s mom came to NYC to visit and to help take one of the cats on the plane to CA.  I’m sure she had no idea what was in store.  Shacks apparently has developed carsickness (which we didn’t see when we took her to Brazil).  In between flip-outs, she barfed and pooped in her carrier in the cab on the way to the airport, and again on the airplane.
2. I got a call at 4am the day after I arrived in Detroit.  It was the NYPD.  My Fiesta (which my sister Cara is taking care of) had been broken into, and a window smashed.  And get this – it was parked across the street from a police station in Brooklyn, and they caught the guy.  Drug-related I guess.  As Cara was in Detroit with me, we had to call and wake up Cara’s boyfriend to ask him to collect the car and take it to a covered parking garage (thanks Keenan!), and then send over some glass repair people the next day.  As I told Cara, the more stuff you have, the more stuff goes wrong.