The Mouse House is loose!! Our 2024 big trip is officially under way.

Micki spent all year planning, I’ve spent the last month tinkering with the electrical system, and we both have spent the last week packing the truck and trailer. Friday we rolled out, headed east.

The trip is something of a combination affair, mostly centered around a slow roll down the old Route 66 from Chicago to LA, but will also involve a half dozen national parks on the way east to Chicago, another International Airstream rally, and a Halloween stint in Disneyland.

The first big stop is an actual vacation in Glacier National Park. Most of the time I work full time in the trailer, forcing us to travel short trips early in the morning then spend days in random parking lots for the sake of working in the trailer. But this week is a true vacation. I’ll work only gently, mostly just catching up on emails in the early mornings as necessary. We’re excited.

This is not our first big trip. Last year we did a 2½ -month trip to Florida and back. We entertain a mild self-delusion that we should be veterans of such long voyages, holding our chins up and chests forward, blasting ahead fearless into the road life for long stints away from our home. Somehow that wasn’t how we felt driving away. We had just hugged our kids goodbye – them back to college and us toward life on the road – and pulled away slowly, sorting out a variety of strangely mixed emotions. We felt neither proud nor fearless, but somehow still determined to accept the challenge issued by our former selves.

The first short leg of the longer trip was only from the Portland metro area to Tri-Cities, roughly 3½ hours away. I worked all day Friday, so we departed after dinner, and arrived in Tri-Cities well after dark. We stayed in the driveway of a very gracious friend and fellow Airstreamer, turning in for the night only after hanging out over a nightcap.

Saturday’s travel took us from Tri-Cities all the way to the West entrance of Glacier National Park, and the drive through northwest Montana was beautiful as expected. Of course we set up all the goofy travel tech in the truck – the rear-view camera monitor, the TPMS monitor, and the Garmin for RVs – each of which adds comfort in its own way.

We’ve driven through Montana and Wyoming many times, and have come to expect the amazing scenery, but it is still very impressive.

We were not prepared for the sheer size of Flathead Lake, and the road circling the lake offered incredible panoramas.

Now we find ourselves set up at a quaint wooded campground near West Glacier, ready to take in Glacier National Park over the next five days.

Micki made pulled pork rice bowls for dinner, and of course we brought some special ingredients that can only be had in the Northwest.

Bella expressed a bit of jealousy, but we can tell she’s excited for the travel. So are we!