When’s the best time to leave for a trip?

It’s not at 4pm on the Friday before Labor Day, but the WISH team van did just that as we crawled up I-40 with a few thousand friends.

We’re heading to Washington, D.C. on a trip that has been in the works for a year. I’ve changed just about every detail of the trip along the way, from dates to accommodations (multiple times) and everything in between. We’re finally on the road and I can no longer tweak any of the details. This trip marks the end of our Civil War study and the beginning of our American Revolution study. Over the last 10 months, the kids have been working on Junior Ranger books so they can become Junior Rangers at 11 National Parks or National Historic Sits we’ll be visiting. While in NYC last year, we discovered that each book requires about 2 hours to complete on site so we requested the books be mailed to us in advance and we did as much as we could do before our trip.

Getting back to Day 1.

While we don’t officially start the touring part of our trip until tomorrow at Appomattox Court House, we had a ton of fun playing drive-time games. We have a game called “Guess Who” that we all enjoy playing. The object of the game is for one person to stump everyone else by thinking of someone (biblical, historical, family, or otherwise significant known person) that no one else can figure out by simply asking yes or no questions. It typically takes 10-20 questions before we can figure out the correct person. This afternoon we were playing the game and Cole felt left out so we let him join in for a turn. Evidently, Cole’s imaginary friend, Johnny, was also feeling left out. The round was quick, really quick.

Cole: It’s my turn. Let me play. OK? I’m thinking of somebody.

Clark: Is it Johnny?

Cole: (excited) YES! Good job, Clark.

AND, we had much more hilarity during the drive. . .at Cole’s expense.

Cole had another question for everyone when the laughter died down.

He wanted to know what letter did A start with. While in his mind he thought this was a valid question, we tried to convince him that A was a letter and several words started with it.  Finally, he tired of us trying to reason with him and he exclaimed that A starts with Annie. We all then realized what he meant. Then Cole had another important question. What letter does B start with? And it all began again.  .  .