Lea-mazing race

We're off on the Lea-mazing race! Dan prepared route info for every leg of our journey so that Lea could help navigate. He created Detours for many of our stops — Those are a choice between two actions. He made "woot makahs" - a play on Phil from the Amazing Race's New Zealand accent and the way he says route marker. The woot markahs mean we have to stop what we're doing and take a family photo. On the real amazing race they have road blocks which one team member does. The Neals have "road rocks" where we collect a special rock that we will then deliver graveside to Dan V. Neal in Kansas on our last stop before we head home. See, it is because of him that we thought of the trip as well as are able to take the trip. If you've talked to us for very long in the last year, you've heard the story but we must tell it here.


You see ,my father in law Dan V. always said when he retired he was going to pack up his dog in the car and travel the country. He retired and never took his trip. Less than two years after retirment he died. We miss him greatly and wish to honor him with our trip. We must not put off what we wish to do, but do them when we can. It worked out that we can, so we did. 

Here is the before photo of our family. I should have taken a before photo of our packed van also. Dan did an amazing job organizing the van. Repacking every time we stop will be a test of his organization. Here we're happy to hit the road.