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We’ve been passing around all the germs (sharing is caring, right?), so we’ve been staying close to home the last couple weeks. The hard part of dealing with a chronic autoimmune disorder like celiac disease means that when I get sick, I tend to stay sick for longer than healthier people might.
The enforced inactivity means we’ve missed a couple hikes and not spent much time outside, but we’ve taken advantage of the down time to start planning our spring and summer activities.
Spring means it’s time to order chicks and start training for my next half marathon.
We’ll be raising a batch of Cornish Cross chicks destined for the freezer before we head out on our summer road trip, and when we return we’ll get a few laying chicks. I’ll be running the Glacier NP half marathon at the end of June, which will be my 7th half marathon.
We have a busy summer planned, which will partly compensate for the lack of activities the first part of the year while I have spent a significant amount of time starting and building several businesses.
Where will we go?
This summer we have a couple family reunions in Utah and Idaho, so we’ll be making a big road trip out of it, as we have in past years. We missed our big road trip in 2015 due to Ocean’s imminent birth, so our last big road trip was in 2013, when I was pregnant with River (just not quite as far along). In 2013 we visited several Laura Ingalls Wilder sites, Mt Rushmore, Grand Teton NP, and Yellowstone NP.
This year we’ll visit the rest of the Laura Ingalls Wilder sites, Zion NP, and Glacier NP. We’ll also explore northern Idaho to decide if we’d like to move there in a few years.
How will we travel?
In 2011 and 2013 we road tripped in our 18′ travel trailer, which was a great experience. We sold the trailer in 2014 with plans to buy a small RV. Life took over, so we didn’t buy the RV when we planned, but in another month and a half that will change. We’ve narrowed our search to three models and are looking forward to checking them out in person.
We’ve road tripped <much shorter trips> in our Toyota Camry hybrid and our Honda CRV, and while it’s doable in a smaller vehicle, having more space makes it more enjoyable. We also appreciate being able to pull over and sleep when we’re ready, rather than when we reach the hotel we have reservations for. The flexibility is invaluable.
And the real reason I like having a travel trailer or RV to road trip in:
We also appreciate having a fully functional kitchen, which allows us much more control and variety in the foods that we eat. There’s only a few restaurants that I feel safe eating at (due to gluten contamination issues), and while in the past we’ve successfully planned our itineraries around those restaurants, it gets really old really fast to eat at the same two or three restaurants day in and day out.
What are your plans for the summer?
