We have begun our journey!

After a year and half of dreaming, researching and months of preparation, we packed up the minivan and left Virginia, headed for our future home of Idaho. After we return from our 360 degree year long tour, we’ll be putting down roots there. During the journey to Idaho we stopped in Ohio, Illinois, Kansas, Minnesota, South Dakota, and Wyoming, stayed with so many friends and family along the way. We haven’t even left the country yet and we’ve already seen so many cool things!

Illinois After a mini pit stop in Beavercreek, Ohio with Dad’s cousins, we headed to Illinois to stay with our cousins. They’d been telling us about the City Museum in St. Louis for the last year, so we knew had to go. It was the most interesting building we’ve ever seen! The structure was made of shells, bread pans, coffee makers, sculptures, school buses, planes, ladders, aquariums, and anything else you could possibly build a slide out of. We briefly lost K, which lead us to reinforce the “what to do if you get lost” rules.

Kansas Dad’s cousins live on the beautiful Lake Quivera. We had so much fun swimming in the lake, driving around in the golf carts and getting to know cousins we’d never met. We can’t wait to visit Kansas City again! Then the next day we got to visit with mom’s cousin too, who works for the Kansas City Chiefs. We got to have a family level viewing of the Chiefs’ practice. A lot of fun.

Minnesota Minnesota is my dad’s home state, so he had a few things we HAD to do. After visiting our grandmother, we drove up to northern Minnesota to walk across the headwaters of the Mississippi River. It was much chillier up there than we’re used to. There were many other tourists there but it did not feel overcrowded or too busy. It was quite a relaxing pit stop. We also stopped to visit Paul Bunyan and Babe the blue ox, two ginormous statues in Bemidji, Minnesota.

South Dakota We didn’t spend much time in South Dakota, but we made a pitstop at the Corn Palace in Mitchell, which is completely decorated with many types of corn on the outside. The next day, we drove to Mount Rushmore and drove past the Crazy Horse monument. One last hotel in Wyoming and the next day we got to Boise, Idaho.

Idaho Finally in Idaho, Mom and Dad were full-on preparing for our trip around the world, making last minute stops to stores, making sure all documents were in order, etc. But we also spent a ton of time barbecuing and hanging out by our grandparents’ pool with family. We got to see our kitties, Cricket and Frosty! It was the perfect last pitstop before we left the country.

The cross country journey was a small test run for the big trip. It was a lot of fun. A lot of corn fields. But so much fun being with the friends and family along the way.

On to stop RTW #1, Cartagena, Colombia!