Chicago, Get Ready!

The idea of hitting the road on a big road trip before the sun has even come up has always appealed to me. At 6:00 a.m. tomorrow our odyssey to Chicago begins and I am so excited. I just told my friend KC I wasn’t sure if I could even go to sleep.

When I was a young child, we would drive to Minnesota every other summer to see my father’s family. It was a 3-day trip before the days of interstates. We packed a lot of food and brought huge Thermoses of coffee so my father could stay awake, since he did all the driving. I loved it when we would get started about 4:00 in the morning.


My husband is definitely not a morning person, so the days of early departure are long since past. We are lucky to roll out after rush hour these days.

But not tomorrow. We are making this 600-mile trip in just one day and planning to arrive before dinner, so an early start is a must.

We have enough recorded reading material, thanks to your suggestions and some help from my husband, to drive across the country and back. We have plenty of snacks. We have our knitting projects. We have each other’s company.


And I hope we have maps. I spent a lot of time when I was a young traveler following the progress of our trip. I quickly took over from my mother as the navigator because she hated being responsible for telling my father when he needed to change course. Our driver KC could probably make this trip with her eyes closed she has done it so many times, but I hope we still bring a map.

I asked if we were eating breakfast before we left. KC proceeded to tell me how she was just going to have a yogurt on the road. I couldn’t quite figure out how one could drive and eat yogurt. I asked if she sucked it out of the container. She went on to explain that she put it between her legs and... I promise to post a description of breakfast on the road with pictures tomorrow.

ROAD TRIP! ROAD TRIP! ROAD TRIP!