We had three trips to the Grand Canyon over the years but that was only our second place National Park.  Our favorite would have to be Mount Rushmore, we drove that northern expedition 5 times in our married life, and I had been there probably four times before then.  I can’t think of an actual reason why we liked it so much, we just seemed to gravitate that way.  Between her parents and brothers in Minneapolis, Wall South Dakota, the Spam museum and the giant mosquitoes, who wouldn’t want to go up North.  When we first started going up there, we had a 280zx that was a hatchback, this was about 24 years ago, and we weren’t as safe as we are now.  There were a couple of times that the boys slept in the hatchback part with the wheelchair.  We were terrible parents then.  I remember working all day then loading everyone up in the car and driving through the night to see her parents.  Now I would hit the interstate and Deb and I were looking for a hotel.  She would sometimes be asleep before we got out of town.

Deb always liked the road trips we took before the boys took over the stereo, they would usually watch dvds in the back while we had some peace and quiet in the front.  She later started bringing Chloe with us and she loved the whole family being in the car just focusing on each other and spending time talking and laughing.  If you have ever spent 12 hours traveling with Quinn and Hayden it is an experience.  I don’t know how she enjoyed it, trapped with three adolescents for a trip across America but she said she did.

That was the biggest draw we had to working at the Post Office.  We get a good amount of time off for vacations, not like what Europe gets but good for an American company.  We never wanted to be the family that was sorry when one of us left that we hadn’t taken more time to travel.  Anyone who knows us, knows we tried to go anywhere she wanted and probably some places she didn’t.  They weren’t extravagant trips but there were a lot of them.  Our boys love to travel still, and they never became like some teenagers who didn’t want to take trips with their parents.  They took three road trips with us the last year of Deb’s life and we all had so much fun.