Hello from the road! I am currently sitting in the passenger seat of our SUV having already driven 3000 miles since our departure on June 28th. We have stayed in one adequate hotel, one incredibly scary hotel, my sister's house, her neighbor's camper trailer, my in-laws basement (whilst they are in Spain for 18 months), my sister-in-law's air conditioned home (phew! finally, some air!) and tonight we will hopefully find a cheap hotel in a safe area of Kearney NE, before continuing on down the road toward home. All told, we will log more than 4500 miles. We have eaten drive through, home cooked, and tried to fit in our pants after eating all the foods we miss having left home. We have seen my parents, my sister, her husband, and their three kids; my husband's brothers, sisters, brother-in-law, and five of our cousins. Not to mention friends and loved ones. It has been a whilrlwind adventure.
In fourteen days of vacation, I can amass hundreds of photos. And then I get home. I quickly download, separate into folders, label the folders, and then become overwhelmed. COMPLETELY overwhelmed. So the photos sit. Sometimes I get to a mini book, but more often than not, the photos just accumulate "dust" on my hard drive.
And I thought this would probably be one of those trips.
But no. This year, as we began, my Richard told me that someone that he works with suggested we keep an instagram travelogue. "Wouldn't that be great?" he says? "Then we would have an album for our trip."
Part of my wanted to give him my stinkiest stink eye and say, "What do you think I do with all those photos I take when we travel? Don't you remember I scrapbook them?
But then I remembered, I don't really.
Only in my mind do I.
So instead, I swallowed my pride, and said, "Oh my! What a great idea! Let's do that!" And it was decided. And because it was his idea, he has been completely onboard. Every stop, every meal, every person--he has made sure it has all been recorded. Without any fight, trouble, or complaining!
Thus far, we have more than 200 photos logged. Anytime we get in the car, I work on a few. And before I go to bed at night, I make sure the day's photos are uploaded and commented upon.
(For now, I have been uploading in chronological order, figuring I can switch up the order later if I decide to go topical.)
Here is a sample of our album.
Now, on this final few days driving home, I am writing up a few more notes about our trip. Things that don't really have a photo but are noteworthy even still. As soon as I get home, I am going to send off the instapics and have them bound into a book. Easiest peasiest ever.
A couple of lessons learned:
- we started a new instagram account for this endeavor so that we didn't inundate any of our followers with 25-30 pictures a day.
- only use one phone. it's a pain to figure out which photos came when if you need to merge more than one.
- that said, if someone else's phone has a shot you missed, have them email it to you. then you can add it in. My texting doesn't let me save it to my phone pics.
- it's easy to lose steam, but don't! If you find you have a day with slim photos, take a couple of extras the next day.
- try to take a photo at the end of the day, or the beginning of the day, that will serve as a natural indicator of a day change as you are looking through your albums.
- don't leave out the silly ones! our lives and our vacations aren't perfect. it's fun to remember some of the chaos too! (See that photo in the lower right hand corner? That's me hiding under a blanket as my newly permitted (learners) driver drives 75 mph...)
I'm excited to have an album done and to have the pressure of scrapbooking hundreds of layouts alleviated. I hope this might give you an idea, too!
Happy Summer!
marnie
