If you follow me on Instagram or if we’re friends on Facebook then you may have noticed last week that we took a road trip for Spring Break.  We spent the week with family down in Crystal Beach, TX and it was in a word: awesome.

Traveling has been on my mind a lot lately, but not for the reasons one would expect.  Yes, like anyone we love a good vacation.  Yes, like everyone we NEED a good vacation.  But I also think about how we should seize every opportunity now to travel while Jared still has his vision, while he can still see this beautiful country.  I’m confident we will always travel regardless, but a slight sense of urgency still prevails.

Yet there’s plenty of excuses not to travel and we’ve fallen prey to each of them.

Money.

Time.

Responsibilities.

Who in their mind travels with 3 small kids.

Blah blah blah.  With the encouragement of family, we finally kissed those excuses goodbye and hit the road. We took our time on the way out, deciding to head out a day early to avoid a snowstorm (good call Dad) and made it to Raton for our first night in the hotel.  We woke up to see these two all curled up.

There was 11 of us caravanning in a minivan and our Pilot.  Cozy, but we made it work.  We tried to limit our stops but couldn’t resist the Cadillac Ranch in Amarillo on Day 2.  Despite the extreme and persistent protests from the ‘men’ we overruled them (shocking I know) and got a few great photos out of it.

Apparently it’s ‘tradition’ to bring a can of spray paint, spray a section of one of the cars and then write your name in marker.  In case this somehow winds up on your bucket list take note, you don’t really need to buy a can of spray paint as there are dozens laying around on the ground that people left behind after they got their 10 seconds of tagger rebellion out of their system.

Every couple or family wants a picture in front of a bunch of buried Cadillacs in the middle of a dirt field right?

I felt it necessary to remind the kids that this is the ONLY place they can write on cars. Only.

We decided on this trip that one way or another, we’re hitting the road as soon and as often as possible. So this next pic is the first in my new personal series ’50 states’.

Day 3 we picked up two more family members for the road just outside of Dallas and headed towards the beach.  I constantly find with kids that they have the most fun doing the simplest things.  In the final leg of our journey we drove up onto the ferry to take us across the water to Crystal Beach and the kids found their latest thrill at the front of the ferry, feeding the seagulls bread.

Grandma Jenean tried her hardest but just couldn’t pull it off and ran squealing from the birds (yes squealing).

It’s okay, Uncle Jared stepped in.

Stay tuned for part 2 of Spring Break 2013…the beach.