{"id":1414,"date":"2009-07-07T23:10:50","date_gmt":"2009-07-08T04:10:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.toonesalive.com\/blog\/family\/?p=1414"},"modified":"2009-08-04T22:59:55","modified_gmt":"2009-08-05T03:59:55","slug":"and-were-off","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.toonesalive.com\/blog\/family\/?p=1414","title":{"rendered":"And we&#8217;re off!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Annual Toone Family Summer Road Trip starts tomorrow at 9am (hopefully!).\u00a0 This one will be quite an adventure!\u00a0 We&#8217;re heading west&#8230; seeing lots and lots of family and old friends along the way, doing lots of bike races (well, actually only 2 different but those two will consist of 9 total stages!)\u00a0 I&#8217;ve got lots more chatter now that I&#8217;m actually sitting here blogging instead of writing a blog post in my head in the shower (rarely, rarely do those creative, inspiring posts make it to the computer!), but, alas, it&#8217;s 10:30 and I&#8217;ve got to get some sleep tonight so I&#8217;ll be patient and cheerful when my kids are bored and making me crazy on the 8 1\/2 hour leg of the journey tomorrow.<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s the run-down (mileage\/time according to Google Maps.\u00a0 You can see the rudimentary journey <a href=\"http:\/\/maps.google.com\/maps\/ms?ie=UTF8&amp;hl=en&amp;msa=0&amp;msid=112950630109237189611.00046c915c0aa3c048ef9&amp;t=h&amp;z=5\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a> or I&#8217;ve inserted the actual map at the bottom&#8230;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Wednesday,\u00a0 July 8th &#8211; Birmingham to Van, Texas (565 mi, 8 1\/2 hrs); Staying with friends from Mercy Ships Nicaragua.\u00a0 Hanging out at Mercy Ships and reconnecting on Thursday.<\/li>\n<li>Friday, July 10th &#8211; Van, TX to Carlsbad, NM (538 mi, 9 1\/2 hrs); With a super early departure and good traveling graces, we&#8217;re hoping to catch the sunset event of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nps.gov\/cave\/planyourvisit\/bat_flight_program.htm\" target=\"_blank\">bats leaving the Carlsbad Caverns<\/a> and a short visit to the caves in the morning.<\/li>\n<li>Saturday, July 11th &#8211; Carlsbad, NM to Flagstaff, AZ (624 mi, 10 1\/4 hrs);\u00a0 This will be a long day, staying with my cousin, his wife and their 2 girls.\u00a0 Brian is excited to sleep &#8220;at altitude&#8221; for a night, as this will surely this will give him a competitive edge in 10 days when he races.\u00a0 (It&#8217;s ok for my exercise scientist sisters to laugh.\u00a0 I&#8217;m letting him believe it for the mental competitive edge!)<\/li>\n<li>Sunday, July 12th &#8211; Flagstaff, AZ to Las Vegas (262 miles, 4 1\/4 hrs).\u00a0 Brian&#8217;s going to ride with my cousin before we leave Flagstaff, we&#8217;ll make a short visit to the Grand Canyon just an hour north, before heading out on the shortest leg of our entire journey.<\/li>\n<li>Sunday, July 12th to Wednesday, July 15th &#8211; Staying at the Monte Carlo in Las Vegas while Brian presents at a conference.\u00a0 Awfully excited to just hang out at our nice hotel that has a wave pool and a lazy river, along with 2 pools.\u00a0 Sweet!\u00a0 Who knows what else we&#8217;ll do in Las Vegas?\u00a0 Any free-cheap suggestions welcome&#8230;<\/li>\n<li>Wednesday, July 15th &#8211; Las Vegas, NV to Davis, CA (584 mi; 9 hrs); Arriving in our old hometown of Davis, the start of our lives as a family of 2 and of 3!\u00a0 Analise is so excited to see where she was born.\u00a0 We&#8217;re so excited to go back and see all our old friends.<\/li>\n<li>Wednesday, July 15th to Monday, July 20th &#8211; Staying with the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.happyhafflys.com\" target=\"_blank\">Hafflys<\/a>.\u00a0 Woohoo!<\/li>\n<li>Monday, July 20th &#8211; Davis, CA to Bend, OR (429 mi, 7 1\/2 hrs).\u00a0 A gorgeous drive.\u00a0 Staying at a super-nice hotel on Monday night, after we bid $40 on Priceline&#8230; our bid was accepted and upgraded.\u00a0 Sweet!<\/li>\n<li>Tuesday, July 21st to Sunday, July 26th &#8211; Staying at a <a href=\"http:\/\/bendvacationrentals.com\/btcourtyards.html\" target=\"_blank\">townhouse<\/a> in Bend with my family, my aunt\/uncle, cousin\/wife\/2 little girls (from Flagstaff!), my <a href=\"http:\/\/thedelarosbys.blogspot.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">sister\/brother-in-law<\/a>.\u00a0 A mini-family reunion!\u00a0 Brian&#8217;s racing in the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mbsef.org\/CascadeCyclingClassic\/\" target=\"_blank\">Cascades Cycling Classic<\/a>.\u00a0 It&#8217;s a BIG race, and it will be quite an adventure to cheer him on through the tough, pro race.\u00a0\u00a0 6 different stages, lots of climbing, a very strong field.\u00a0 By the way, I tweet live updates of his racing <a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/ToonesFanClub\" target=\"_blank\">@ToonesFanClub<\/a>, in case you want to follow what&#8217;s happening!<\/li>\n<li>Sunday, July 26th &#8211;\u00a0 Bend, OR to Fort Collins, CO (1,065mi, 16 1\/2 hrs). We&#8217;ll start heading east after the bike race ends mid afternoon, hopefully make it to Salt Lake City.<\/li>\n<li>Monday, July 27th &#8211; Fort Collins, CO. Staying with a friend from UW-Green Bay.<\/li>\n<li>Tuesday, July 28th &#8211; Fort Collins, CO to Denver, CO (60 mi, 1 hr). Actually THIS will be the shortest leg of the journey.\u00a0 Visiting my sweet sister, Kat, seeing whatever she wants to show us of her new hometown.<\/li>\n<li>Wednesday, July 29th or Thursday, July 30th &#8211; Denver, CO to Aurora, IL (967 mi, 14 hrs).<\/li>\n<li>Thursday, July 30th to Sunday, August 2nd &#8211; Aurora\/Elk Grove, IL &#8211; Staying with another UW-Green Bay friend, visiting <a href=\"http:\/\/motherofpearls.net\/\" target=\"_blank\">dear friends<\/a>, while Brian races in the Tour of Elk Grove Friday to Sunday.<\/li>\n<li>Sunday, August 2nd &#8211; Elk Grove, IL to La Porte, IN\u00a0 (104 mi, 2hrs); Staying with my Grandma and visiting her until mid-day Monday.<\/li>\n<li>Monday, August 3rd &#8211; La Porte, IN to Birmingham, AL (627 mi, 10 1\/2 hrs).\u00a0 A stretch of road we&#8217;ve driven many, many times.\u00a0 Straight down I-65, this will bring us home again after nearly 3 1\/2 weeks.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>What a crazy adventure!\u00a0 Look for updates from my iPhone&#8230; If you&#8217;re on our route, we can&#8217;t wait to see you!\u00a0 If you&#8217;re not&#8230; feel free to come on over to our route at any point&#8230; we&#8217;ll work you in!<br \/>\n<small>View <a style=\"color:#0000FF;text-align:left\" href=\"http:\/\/maps.google.com\/maps\/ms?ie=UTF8&amp;hl=en&amp;msa=0&amp;msid=112950630109237189611.00046c915c0aa3c048ef9&amp;ll=38.118039,-104.253215&amp;spn=11.884881,34.96313&amp;t=h&amp;source=embed\">Out West &#8211; July, 2009<\/a> in a larger map<\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Annual Toone Family Summer Road Trip starts tomorrow at 9am (hopefully!).\u00a0 This one will be quite an adventure!\u00a0 We&#8217;re heading west&#8230; seeing lots and lots of family and old friends along the way, doing lots of bike races (well, actually only 2 different but those two will consist of 9 total stages!)\u00a0 I&#8217;ve got [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[34,23,17,11],"tags":[94],"class_list":["post-1414","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adventure","category-cycling","category-links","category-travel","tag-out-west"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pkzLf-mO","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.toonesalive.com\/blog\/family\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1414","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.toonesalive.com\/blog\/family\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.toonesalive.com\/blog\/family\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.toonesalive.com\/blog\/family\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.toonesalive.com\/blog\/family\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1414"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.toonesalive.com\/blog\/family\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1414\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1416,"href":"https:\/\/www.toonesalive.com\/blog\/family\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1414\/revisions\/1416"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.toonesalive.com\/blog\/family\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.toonesalive.com\/blog\/family\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.toonesalive.com\/blog\/family\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}