88 days to go

It all seems surreal. There are 84 days left until our wedding day. That means that there are 88 days left until the road trip. I guess written down that seems like a long time away, but I know better. I blinked my eyes, last year in May, and somehow I got here. Three months. The length of our trip and the length of time before it.

I woke up this morning, as I imagine many brides do so close to their nuptials, thinking for perhaps the millionth time since our engagement about the wedding. It's surreal when I stop to think that four years ago was high school. It's surreal that we are so close to doing two things that I have dreamt my whole life about but have only ever done in my minds eye.

I woke up thinking about the wedding. And then I thought: What will we talk about after the trip is over? I know there was Tony and Megan long before the seeds of the idea for the trip took root. I know that we will always be in love. I also know that after the trip we will still be us and we will have plenty to talk about. All of this is just very hard to imagine because for at least the last year we haven't done much besides work and set money aside.

So here we are getting ready, compiling lists. We have a green air mattress that fits snugly in the back of the Xterra, Bags of dehydrated fruit, a large duffel bag, a car pillow, and we just bought a laptop and signed our parents up for Skype.

A bit of background for you.

Ever since I can remember I've dreamt of picking up everything and taking off to places unknown. It's something primal that grows from deep within your belly and chases at your heals. It's a desire to test the limits of your humanity while exploring a world that you've never known.

I'm Megan. In just a few months I'll be marring my wonderful fiancée, Tony, and then three days after that we will be will begin our summer long road-trip across the US. Before I met Tony it had become a custom of mine to ask friends and boyfriends alike if they wanted to take off with me somewhere. I didn't care where or for how long we went, I simply wanted to go. And, I was inevitably met with the same response every time. They would laugh it off and tell me that I was being silly. The thought of taking off by myself never really appealed to me either. And so my desire to drive off into the sunset was placed neatly on a back burner, but was never forgotten.

Tony and I are similar beings. We started taking day trips together soon after we began dating. He has kept a tattered copy of Jack Kerouac's " On the Road" in his glove compartment since long before I met him. And while I didn't fall in love with him because of his sense of adventure, it certainly is one of the things that I adore about him.

I moved in with Tony in April of 2009. One day we were talking about taking a drive somewhere when the idea for "The Road Trip" popped up. Originally we had decided to aim for the summer of 2010, but then Tony asked the big question and our plans changed. It seemed only natural to make the trip our honeymoon. So we began to set aside the money for our adventure little by little but it just wasn't adding up. We packed up our things, said goodbye to our apartment and moved in with his parents.

We've sacrificed the little trips we may have taken along with many things we would have done to entertain ourselves over the last two years replacing them with working long hours and staying at home. ( more than either of us probably would have liked) All in the name of "The Road Trip."

Now here we are. There are one hundred and seven days left until our wedding. There are one hundred and ten days left until we begin our trip. I can't wait!

Our Ride

I've had this car since 2006 and have put over 100,000 miles on it in that time.

It is a 2005 Nissan Xterra with 130,000 miles on it. It gets an average of 19 miles per gallon and has 4wd.

Planned Map(test post)