Preparing for our Road Trip to Virginia

It is the weekend before our roadtrip begins.  We have a lot of stuff to prepare and get ready.  The girls will be going to Grandma Paula's and Calvin will be going to Aunt Connie's.  Chris is dropping them all off on Monday night.  I leave for Chicago, on a work trip, Tuesday morning.  Four of us are taking a roadtrip to Chicago instead of flying there.  Should be fun.  The plan on the way back is to drop me off in Eau Claire, Wisconsin.  My in-laws will pick me up and I will have the evening to finish preparing for our trip to Virginia the next morning.  We will plan on leaving for Virginia on Friday, August 6th.  We plan on stopping to sleep, so we won't arrive in Virginia until Saturday, August 7th.  We are spending a week in Virginia, Washington DC and anywhere else that looks interesting along the way.  The Ford Excursion is our vehicle of choice.  Actually, it is the vehicle that will seat 7 people legally.  I have my 2000 Toyota mini-van, but the air conditioning is broken, so with 100 degree heat in Virginia, it is off limits.  Oh, I forgot to mention the purpose of our trip.  We are going to visit Chris' brother David and his wife Xiang.  They just recently got married and moved into a house.  We are excited to see their new place.  We are taking Chris' parents (Paula and Wes) along with us on the trip.  They didn't want to fly, so we decided to make the drive over there instead.  We also looked into the train, but that wasn't cheap and we would have to rent a car once we arrived.  I will update this blog as the week progresses and let you in on our travel experiences.  Enjoy!