Couch Surfing USA Part 1

  As most a lot some really big undertakings do, it started with a very simple idea.  My in-laws had been to visit us about 1000 times since we moved to Portland 3 years ago and I hadn't seen my family since my mom's funeral so it was time for us to go to them. I carefully calculated  pretty much guesstimated how much we'd need for travel expenses and activities and talked a lot about saving up for our trip. Then I realized that, unlike our previous cross-country trips, I wasn't under a deadline. We could take as much time as we needed. I started thinking about sights we could see along the way. Then I thought about people I could see along the way. Again, it started with one person and branched out from there. A simple 5 day, 2600 mile trip became a 2 week, 2900ish mile expedition. We stayed with several friends, saw a few planned sights and had a few impromptu side trips. It was poorly planned,my budget got cut in half due to some vehicle maintenance issues on our other car, I over packed and very quickly let go of a lot of ideals in the name of survival/ maintaining my sanity and the kids and I ran through a gamut of emotions on a daily basis. And I look forward to having the chance to do it again. I have a lot of ideas of how I want to write about it and just may try them all out. That's the great thing about my blog. It's MY blog! All mine! hahahahahahaha! Can't wait to get started!
  I'm calling the series Couch Surfing but that's a bit of a misnomer. Couch surfing, to me implies that one is crashing with strangers. We were graciously welcomed into the homes of friends and family members who took great care of us.