Prelude... (Adam)

So, here it is Sunday night, maybe 36 hours before we--me, Bethany, and our two kids, Jed (10) and Meg (6)--pile into a rental minivan and trundle across the northern portion of "these United States" (as politicians used to refer to it), bound for Seattle, Washington, where my nephew Karl and his new blushing bride Michelle are having a wedding reception on Friday, September 4.

B: We will also be dipping into Canada, eh, and I will wave my little maple-leaf for you, Michaud, and Justin and Lillian...

Why, you ask? Why are we driving cross-country for about a week with two rammy, media-addicted elementary school kids? Why are we daring fate to recreate scenes from National Lampoon's Vacation and various other vacation-disaster movies? First let me say that it was all Bethany's

idea. Whether it was generous or mean-spirited of me to say that will be determined retrospectively, after we find out how this goes.

Her reasoning was that she spent a good portion of her childhood trundling across the barren wastelands of western Canada in a station wagon with her family, and it was a character-forming experience, and she would like to bestow just a taste of that sort of thing on our children.

B: Actually my reasoning is that suffering builds character, and that my children haven't suffered nearly enough.

I went along with the idea because typically I just do whatever my wife says.

B: If only...

But seriously, despite the potential for so many "someday we'll look back and laugh" type episodes, I'm pretty excited about the whole thing. And anyway, we're only half crazy, because we're dropping the rental off in Seattle and then flying home at the end of Labor Day weekend.

So anyway, check back here later this week for posts on Niagara Falls, Mount Rushmore, Yellowstone, and all kinds of other cool stuff! YIPPEE!