A San Diego Comic-Con Adventure

Vacations have always been a priority for us. They give us time to slow down and spend quality time together as a family. In the past, these have been long weekends to our favorite amusement parks or the typical 7 to 10-day beach trip. However, a few years ago, we took a life-changing trip! This trip was the catalyst that eventually led us to reorganize our lives to have more of these amazing moments.

A Common Family Life

In the spring of 2017, we were living a common life. We had a beautiful house and 2 paid-off vehicles. Rachel was in elementary school. Sophie was finishing up pre-school and preparing to start kindergarten in the fall. Ellie, our oldest daughter, was attending the local community college and working to complete the last semester before earning her Associates Degree. Kevin worked full-time and I volunteered at church and school and worked part time. In those days, we took about 1-2 weeks of vacation per year, along with some long weekends to visit our favorite amusement park. We wanted to travel more, but we were all on different work/school schedules. Coordinating when everyone was available at the same time was very difficult, but we didn’t really believe there was any other way to live. That was all about to change. We were about to go on an adventure that would have us planning to change the way we thought about everything.

A Marvel Obsession Sparks an Uncommon Family Adventure

Ellie has been a fan of the Marvel Cinematic Universe since 2012 when The Avengers premiered in theaters. She and Kevin would hit the theater together multiple times a year for each new MCU premiere. This Marvel obsession led to her dream of attending San Diego Comic-Con, but it just seemed unrealistic. Badges are notoriously hard to get for first timers due to a completely randomized lottery system. Despite this, Ellie had made a Comic-Con Member ID for both herself and Kevin in 2015 with the hope that they would be lucky enough to score tickets. Unfortunately, after 2 years of trying (2015 & 2016), they had no such luck.

In 2017, they planned their strategy diligently and did all the preparation. Ellie even got approved to leave early from an Open House event that she was helping to run at her community college so she could be home to try for badges. Shortly after 11am ET on the day of Open Registration, they each entered the Waiting Room for the lottery sale on a different computer. Then, at 12pm ET, the randomization process began and all they had to do was sit back, wait, and watch the “spinning blue circle of death.” So long as that circle was spinning, they knew that they were being refreshed every minute or so. After nearly an hour of waiting, Kevin was moved over to the badge purchase page and was able to purchase badges for Thursday and Sunday for both himself and Ellie. Suddenly, it went from a far off dream to an actual reality. They were heading to San Diego in July!

Click on photo to enlarge and see descriptions.

Because of the year-round school calendar in our state of North Carolina, our girls only had three weeks off in the summer, but they happened to fall in July. We considered Ellie and Kevin flying to San Diego alone, but we really wanted a family vacation in the summer and their absence for nearly a week in July would limit our options. We considered all flying to San Diego together, but cross-country flights for a family of 5 were just too much for our budget. Then, almost as a joke, we said, “What if we drive?” At first the idea seemed ludicrous, but the more we thought about it and crunched some numbers it started to make sense. With school, work, and personal obligations, we’d never had the ability to be away for more than 10 days at a time. The idea was new and exciting and sounded like a lot of fun. Talking became planning and our excitement built, but so did our uneasiness. Could we actually enjoy 21 days packed into a minivan together and still love each other when it was over?

Researching and Planning

Kevin started to research how long it would realistically take for us to make the drive from Raleigh to San Diego. We believed that three weeks would give us time to stop and visit some friends and sights along the way. Our Littles were still young; Rachel had turned nine in May and Sophie had celebrated her 5th birthday at the beginning of June. Would they be able to sit for hours at a time as we drove all the way across the country? We thought we might be insane, but we’d never know if we didn’t try.

We began to talk about it out loud to our family and friends and almost everyone had an opinion. Some of our friends were supportive, others were skeptical. Some expressed how fun it sounded but also said that, with their own commitments and work requirements, they couldn’t ever imagine getting away for three full weeks. They talked of youth sports schedules, dance recitals, and academic camps that their kids were all signed up to do. The biggest sentiment we received was “Oh, I wish we could do something like that. It sounds amazing!”

With a very rough idea of a couple of the routes that we could take, Kevin and I, along with the girls, began to think about some of the places we would want to see along the way. We made it a priority to stop and see friends in a couple of places and knew of some major sights we wanted to show the girls. A more detailed plan started to quickly take shape and we started to refer to this adventure as the “Big Trip.” Many years later, we still affectionately call it that when we talk about one of the many memories we made.

We couldn’t possibly capture this entire “Big Trip” in one blog post. So, we’ll be taking a little break from our adventures in France to bring you a series of posts about the trip that started it all. Afterwards, we’ll round it all up by sharing our “Big Trip” Itinerary and some Tips for Managing Road Trips with Kids. Then, we’ll make the jump back across the pond to bring you more of our Uncommon Family Adventures in France.

Before leaving for this trip, we thought it would be “the trip of a lifetime.” We had no idea that it would be just the start of our Uncommon Family Adventures. Since then, we’ve traveled by cars, trains, planes, and boats and our favorite part of it all is experiencing it together as a family! What is your dream trip? What would happen if you just said yes and hit the road (or the air or the water)? We love hearing from you and hope you’ll share your adventures with us!