"I've Been Everywhere, Man..."

Okay, I haven't been even close to everywhere, but we were on another road trip last weekend. This time we drove out to Washington and I probably should have listened to that little voice that was telling me it was a bit far for a weekend trip. But I didn't listen, we saw new things, we all survived (physically anyway, our mental health may be questionable), and of course, I learned a few things...

• Now that the kids are older, we need DVD players for each of them along with kid-sized head phones so they can watch separate movies
  
• There are a couple hundred miles in the middle of Washington that you can convince yourself is Texas as long as you ignore the cool temperatures and mist.....relatively flat land and crop fields as far as the eye can see--wonderful
• Two former climbers should never ever assume they can just "drive through" Mt. Ranier National Park. At the very least, several stops and many, many pictures are necessary
• When you have to work the next day, you should always, always keep track of "estimated arrival time" and not let yourself get sidetracked when you're still 8 hours from home
• There are huge chunks of the northwest with very limited and spotty cell service. If we do any sort of road trips at all in winter/early spring, I will be making sure there is a 72 hour kit and probably a basic camping box in the car. It may be slight overkill, but I over prepared for Texas hurricanes too--I'd rather have what I need. It would definitely be possible to be stuck somewhere in the snow for a few days with no way to call out, just waiting for someone else to come by

I'll update on our trip later, after I upload photos, return rented movies, grocery shop, unpack, and sleep. We went to Seattle for a night, then Great Wolf Lodge for a night, drove through Mt. Ranier, then stayed a night in Coeur D' Alene, Idaho because of poor planning on our part.