Let's talk about traveling for a minute.
I've had a lot of questions in the last few months such as - where are you now? Where are you going next? When are you going? Why are you going? ... It's hard to answer those questions because I've done a lot of traveling in the last nine months, and 99% of the trips happened on the spur-of-the-moment, not knowing if or when I would be moving again. It's hard to answer questions when I myself don't know the answers! I sat down and tried to sum up the major trips the other day.
In 2011, I flew from Washington to Chicago for Mr H's graduation, and flew back home a few weeks after. I then made the drive with Chester from Washington back to Chicago, and - including the inconvenient detour through Wyoming due to flooding in Montana - racked up about 2,300 miles on the road. I had a class in Seattle a month later, so I flew from Chicago to Seattle, and then once again from Seattle ... back to Chicago. While I was in Chicago, I drove with Mrs P to her home in Iowa to pick up some items she needed, and this added another thousand miles to my road-trip roster.
The drive from Chicago back to my Washington home was with Seafoam, and we tacked on another 2,000 or so miles there. After a few days in Washington recuperating and packing, Seafoam and I drove down to California to be with our husbands, accruing another 1,300 miles on the road. For the entire month of September, Seafoam and I lived in Los Angeles and commuted to see our husbands at their Navy base, which was almost one hundred miles away. Tacking on those trips, I stacked up an additional 700+ miles on the road.
In December, Mr H's training was ended and we received leave to go home for Christmas. We sold everything we didn't want to haul home, stuffed the rest into the Kia, and drove the 1,300 miles back up to Washington to visit family for the holidays.
After Christmas, Mr H and I packed up his military paraphernalia, the Christmas candies and goodies we'd received, and my overnight bag. We threw it all in the car and left to drive back down to the military base in California, where he needed to fill out some paperwork. This was an additional 1,300 miles. From there, we drove across the country, stopping in Texas to visit with gracious hosts for a night, and then completing the trip to Florida - topping it all off with 2,200 miles!
Now we've been in Florida for a few days, and shortly I'll be flying back up to Washington while he completes some training in the Sunshine State. As the plan sits, we'll be moving to the east coast in the spring - of course, that could always change!
But by the time I finish this flight home, I'll have racked up well over 25,000 miles criss-crossing the United States in the last ten months ... and a little over 12,100 of those miles were in a little car! During the most recent few thousand miles, I've purposely restricted my fluid intake because otherwise I would have Mr H stopping at a gas station every hour... During one of our many stops, however, I wondered if - for our own safety - I should put a sign on our bumper that says, "Caution! This vehicle makes frequent stops!"
Even though growing up we did a lot of traveling, and twice did month-long road trips around the United States, and I visited all 48 contiguous states by 2007 and Hawai'i by 2008 ... I think this knocks all my other US travel years clean out of the park! (International years can't count, because it's too easy to get thousands of miles in one 13-hour flight!)
But I love to travel, and I am always thirsty for more! I just need a few weeks to pack the house up, get things in order, and then ...
I can hit the road again!
Catch me if you can ...
Mrs H
twitter.com/_mrs_h
