return of the jedi?

I've been inspired by all the blogs I've been following lately. I have no idea what I am going to write about or what my focus is going to be. Do I even need one? I think so if I want to be a "successful" blogger. I won't do recipes/cooking. Not because I don't like it, but because there are a lot of people out there who are a lot better than me.

More likely than not, I will update about my random thoughts and adventures. I am having an extreme adventure starting tomorrow. My mom, dad, sister, 2 dogs, and I are packing up the car and starting our weekish-long trip to the Midwest. Tomorrow we are driving from Atlanta to Springfield, Illinois. We will stay with family there. Tuesday we will drive from Springfield, Illinois to Des Moines, Iowa. We will stay in Des Moines for 2 days. My mom's birthday is December 24, aka Christmas Eve, so she has requested to have lunch with her mom and sister as her birthday present. Then we will continue north from Des Moines to Mora, Minnesota. The city of Mora has a population of less than 4,000. They also have 2 lakes (that makes this a legit town in Minnesota). The city covers 4.31 square miles. Basically what I am trying to say is that you should be jealous of my really exciting Christmas destination. CLEARLY a better choice than last year's cruise through the Panama Canal. Right. We are leaving Mora, Minnesota on Saturday and starting south - first stop, Rochester, Minnesota. Clearly we aren't going very far. However, from Rochester we will be making the 16 hour and 23 minute journey back to Atlanta, going straight through Chicago, Indianapolis, Louisville, Chattanooga, and finally back to my beloved Atlanta. It's unclear if we will make this journey in one day or two. We've done it in 1 before. I guess that's not really something to be bragging about, though.

I am preparing by packing a bag full of books (even though I get carsick, I can't help reading in the car, it just makes the time go by so fast!), updating my iPod, charging my portable DVD player, and that's about it. As painful as it sounds, we have traveled extensively by car as a family and it's really not that bad. The Midwest United States with GPS has nothing on middle-of-nowhere Germany with 2003 version of a map. Yes, a real, unfolded, size of the backseat map got us through Germany (among other places in Europe). Now that, my friends, was painful.

Enough about my past travels, for now. Merry Christmas to all, and to all safe travels!