In the morning, my wife and I leave for a three-plus week-long road trip to Michigan and back. Originally this was just going to be my wife and I driving to Texas to pick-up granddaughter #4, Lynsey (16), who we've enrolled in a week-long Summer Youth Program at my alma mater.
http://www.mtu.edu/syp/
We were planning on sending her last year, but with the COVID, the 2020 program was cancelled.
She's taking a class in 'Human Physiology' (she wants to be a doctor).
Anyway, when our #2 son's two stepsons, Pirate (14) and Cosmo (16), heard about this program, they decided that they wanted to go as well (at least we're not paying for them). So their mother is going to drive as well, we're going to 'caravan' across the country, first to Katy, TX, to pick-up our granddaughter, and then up to Houghton, MI, where the school is. Our #5 granddaughter, Paloma (7), if coming on the trip as well (plus their dog).
We've rented a 'home' for the week near the school and we're going to play 'tourists' while the kids are at the school.
Then on Friday, the 23rd, our oldest son, the father of Lynsey, is arriving. He, and two of his daughters, Ryan (18 ) and Sydney (20), will be driving up from Texas along with Sydney's boyfriend. On Saturday, we pick-up the kids from the school. And then on Sunday, the 25th, #2 son will be flying in from LA. Also by then our #3 son and his girlfriend will have driven-up from lower Michigan and joined us. That afternoon we're having dinner with my brother and his wife (they live about 30 miles from the school). This will be the biggest gathering of the trip, 16 people if we all get there when we're supposed to.
We're then going to drive down to lower Michigan to our old home town (where my wife and I were born and where we lived until we left for school), again making 'tourist' stops along the way. We'll then spend a few days visiting cousins and showing our granddaughters where we grew-up and so on. Our granddaughter Sydney and her boyfriend then has to fly back to Texas early.
Finally we all get to my wife's sister's house down near the Ohio boarder. The next day, son #1, and his remaining daughters, head for Texas and son #2, and his family, leave for SoCal. We're going to stay another day so that we can see my kid brother and have dinner with him (he lives near Detroit).
Then we finally leave for home on Sunday, August 1st, arriving back in SoCal on the 5th (if all goes well). We're planning to take a leisurely drive back stopping for a few tourist sights, including Crazy Horse to see what progress that they've made lately. The first time we stopped there was in 1973 and the last time was in 2009. We also plan to drive down through Monument Valley as the last time we did was in 1988, the year that they had those big fires in Yellowstone and the place was so smoky that you could barely see many of the mesas. We're NOT going to swing over the Grand Canyon this time, that we're saving that for when we can go and spend a couple of days there.
Anyway, I'll keep you all posted as we make progress, posting some pictures if we see anything interesting 
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