California Bound

            I’ve mentioned before that making time to get away from our everyday life is important to my husband and me.  Whether it’s a date night, a one day getaway, a romantic weekend getaway or a planned vacation, we really put forth effort to budget and plan for such occasions. 

            When we first got married, we talked about all of the places that we wanted to see some day.  Big, expensive trips were discussed like touring Europe,  cruising the Mediterranean, sightseeing Asia,  taking in the history of Israel, Egypt and India, visiting the Nile and the Amazon, and exploring South Africa were all on those lists!  The reality is that we can’t afford any of those trips right now.  Those are our “some day” trips....or maybe "not in this lifetime" trips if we want to get really honest about it.   We also had more realistic trips like Niagara Falls, the Grand Canyon, the Gulf shores, NYC, Washington DC, Seattle, Philadelphia, the Rockies, the Smokies, the Carolina coast, Yellowstone, and Las Vegas. These trips are much more realistic, and we’ve even been able to knock out a few of them in our three years of marriage.  Even more realistic, are well-planned day trips to neighboring cities like Chicago, Cincinnati, Louisville, and Lake Michigan.  We also had a list of trips that were kind of in between the “some day” trips and the “realistic” trips.  You know….the kind of trips that require lots of saving and planning.....trips like Caribbean cruises, an all inclusive trip to Cancun, an Alaskan cruise, a week in Hawaii, a road trip up the Northeast coast in the fall, and a California road trip in the summer.  We’ve been to the Caribbean a couple of times, and it's beautiful there!.  Soon the California road trip can be crossed off of our list too, because this year we are taking our entire vacation budget and putting into one trip….one big road trip…..yes, I have spent countless hours researching and planning a road trip up the CALIFORNIA COAST! 

            I’m really excited about that trip, and I’m even more excited now that it’s right upon us!  My husband and I have talked about taking this trip for awhile, and this year we just decided to go for it!  In the past, the hubs either couldn’t get enough consecutive time off of work for a lengthy trip….or it wasn’t in the budget…..or we didn’t have enough time to plan it…or excuses, excuses!  No more excuses though, soon my toes will be in the sand of the Pacific!  I can’t wait!  I’ve put a lot of work into planning every detail of this nine day trip.  I'm hoping to post about it each day….but we’ll see how that goes.  I might just be enjoying myself too much to write about it;)