Our road trip began around 30 years ago when Therman and Karen Striplin took their sons, Dan, Jim and Mark on a 5-week trip around the United States. Those memories are still so vivid in Mark's mind that he wanted to share the same experiences with his children. A year ago, the dream began. We actually started visualizing what our trip would look like and where we would visit. This past spring we laminated a map of the USA and outlined the trip Mark took and then started talking about why they stopped in the places they did and what we would do differently. Last night we sat with the kids and mapped out our trip. It is now up on the wall and we are so excited. We are mainly going around the perimeter of the United States. Some of the highlights will include the canyon country, some family in Texas, The Alamo, New Orleans (can't forget the jazz capital for our jazz drummer), University of Tennessee, Martin where my great aunt has a building named after her and they apparently have a pretty awesome marching band program (nothing like shopping for a college early), of course Washington DC and New York, Niagara Falls and much more. Our plan is approximately 6 weeks. Being a Social Studies teacher teaching US History, you can only imagine Mark's excitement. Being a teacher and having never been anywhere but the West Coast, you can imagine my excitement to share this experience with my husband and kids.

More to come . . .