All ABOARD!!!!

[Stage Notes:: Tired, Sitting in my room burning one last disk of pictures]
[Noise:: Fans blowing]

Well, I am going to bed now. The car is packed and I am just about ready to go. One last night of sleep in the comforts of home and then the adventure begins. In a few hours, I will wake up and get in the car and drive. Then I will drive some more. A lot more. I will stop and get some food, and then I will continue with the driving.

It is funny to think that when I was little, I could not stand being in the car for more than about a half hour. I would get car sick if I read anything, so on the occasion I got to sit near the cigarette lighter I would play the one and only game system that I ever owned, Sega Game Gear, and then I was ok for a little longer. It was so bad, that the longest driving vacation my family ever took was to Virginia Beach. Florida was out of the question and meant flying.

In the last few years, my desire to travel and experience anything I can has had me in cars for multiple days. I have made 3 round trips to Florida since 2004 and been to countless places in between. Now for the first time I will make the drive alone to Georgia. It has with it all the makings of the first chapter of an adventure novel. Large amounts of unknown, something planned that can just barely be defined, plenty of literal and figurative road blocks, and of course venturing out to do something alone...well not entirely alone, just the driving part, and of course being the only teacher in the classroom. Well, I guess this is the part where the prologue ends and the story begins....

Discovery Zone

[Stage Notes:: Getting hungry, probably time to figure out lunch]
[Music:: Red Sam | Flyleaf]

Inspired by Ms Maggie Moo's Toosdae's, and sheer curiosity, I thought I would pose a question for you to answer in the comments section. This involves you--yes you--well there is no one else reading this at the moment--knock it off, we are getting off topic :P. As I was saying, this involves you going into the comments section and writing something related to the question.

One thing about commenting really quick for those of you who are new to commenting on blogger, at the moment there are three 'Identities' you can use for a comment.

1. Blogger ID - If you have a blog on blogger, you should already know about this, but if not, you can sign in it will automatically use your blogger name and leave me a link to your blog so I can check it out :)
2. Other - This has two fields, one for your name or some random name that you make up to be silly or create some semblance of anonymity. The second field is for your web page. This is an optional field so if you don't have one or really don't want me to see it, leave it blank. But I like looking at other sites/blogs/xangas/myspaces etc. If you have some web presence somewhere I would love to know. For example, on some blogs I could enter in Hepcat and my old Blog address.
   
3. Anonymous - Honestly, I don't like this field, but if you really want to use it you can. I would prefer that if you use it, you give me some clues as to who you are, but at that point you might as well just use other, and at your request if you are ever talked about in the blog, I will use the silly name you have created for yourself.
   

[ INSERT REMAINDER OF SMALL PRINT, LEGALESE, AND BLAH, BLAH, BLAH HERE ]

Now the question:

What is your favorite pre-travel ritual?

~I have so many rituals before taking a big trip, but since it is my rules, I should probably stick to them. For the moment I am going to have to say stacking my luggage at the foot of the stairs. I really love seeing my pile of luggage neatly sitting at the base of the stairs waiting to be put into a car. It always makes me feel anxious, excited, and relaxed all at the same time.

Now it's your turn!!!

Ten

[Stage Notes:: Wishing time would go faster]
[Podcast:: International Justice Mission | Daily Jeezit w/ Noel]

One of my favorite days before traveling is when I can finally see what the weather forecast is for the day I arrive. It is one thing to look at the local forecast and get a rough idea of the local weather, but it is something entirely different to see the day show up in the 10-day forecast! To me it is one of the first truly tangible things about any trip I am taking. It means the planning is pretty much finished and the trip is going to be a reality.

Today I saw that the weather in San Diego will be 63 and Partly Cloudy when we arrive and that day it will be 92 and mostly sunny in Mexicali. I guess that means I need to start doing some serious thinking about packing...just not physically packing because I cannot do that any more than 24 hours away from the trip :)