Where do we go? (Oh, where do we go now?)

California. 

People for centuries have been running away to California. Why not us, too?

It's sunny in California, we have family there, we had been there often over the years and know the flow, and quite honestly, it was good for our company.

After the sale of the IT business on July 1st, 2011, my husband worked hard to make certain clients knew there were always two separate companies: the IT company and the web and mobile app company. Finally being able to focus on solely on one company, the web and mobile app company, it made sense to go to Silicon Valley and work on networking, go to conferences, and plan out a vision for the next steps of our company. That being the case, we decided to spend part of our time in downtown San Francisco (close to conferences) and part of our time in the suburbs (close to the hubs of many great start-ups).

And where would we stay?

Looking back, it seems silly how many fears I had about using VRBO.com (Vacation Rental By Owner) for that first time in 2011. On VRBO we found an amazing flat (gorgeous and smack dab in downtown SF by the Golden Gate Bridge) and an elaborate suburbia home (complete with heated pool and tiki bar - say what?). Both places we found seemed too-good-to-be-true from their pictures, reviews, and prices - that made me nervous. Plus, we promised the home owners that we had "three well-behaved children." Could we live up to those expectations in such emmaculate homes? Plus, we had to pay for the places in advance. What if they turned out to be scams afterall? I would have to wait until October came to find out our fate, but paying for the rentals made everything about our big adventure very, very real.

And how would we drive there?

At the time we were driving a hand-me-down Dodge Caravan with a bolted shut passenger door and WELL over 220K miles. However, thanks to being debt free for two years, we had been saving the money we had been paying toward our previous debts. Two months before our big adventure, we used our savings to buy a new-to-us Volvo XC90 - V8, AWD, third row seating if needed, decent storage, a place for a bike on top, and not a minivan (no offense, :)!). I had never owned such a nice car in all of my life. After all my life of driving hand-me-downs, this car made me feel incredibly spoiled and, dare I say, guilty - like I shouldn't be allowed to drive such a nice car. Who the hell did I think I was buying such a nice car? Those feelings took a while to conquer, and I'm thankful that my guilt did not overpower my utter thankfulness for that car - which we are still driving, almost 75K miles later today. (And our old minivan? Once again "sold" for the cost of two lattes. :)!)

And how would we get there?

There are many paths to California and my husband had me map out every. single. one. Ok, ok, that's an exaggeration, he didn't make me, but he did suggest I lay out our different route options. So I did, in a Google slide presentation doc. It was actually very helpful laying out all the route options in that methodical way. I was able to think through how many hours and days it would take, figure out places to stay, where to spend more or less time, and in the end it made deciding our path easier. Remember, this was our first big adventure, I didn't know what to expect. I planned more for that first trip than any other subsequent trips. (Hence, why we now know what it's like to run out of gas on I-35. Ha!)

This was it. We had our when - beginning of October until mid-November, we had our where - San Francisco flat and Redwood City house, we had our hows - "new" Volvo and driving across the lonliest highway in America... but it wasn't time yet. Other hiccups had to happen first.

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