Kicking Off

Welcome to the blog that will recap the craziness of the Clausen Family RV Adventure 2011... I'm posting here because several people asked if I'd share photos from the road, and I was a little hesitant to broadcast that we'd be gone -- and our house would be sitting empty -- for two weeks. Not that I expect hoards of people would be checking my usual blog (and sketchy, break-in-and-steal-the-silver types at that), but I just felt like I should be a little careful. Plus, not everyone and their mother wants to hear the details of our family vacation, anyway. If you're here, it's because you actually care. :)

So here are the first set of images from the road. Actually, it's technically the second set; I did post some camera phone snaps on the regular blog on Saturday evening. If you really care, you can start with those.

This was the shot of the Clausen 5 just before we hit the road. We originally thought we'd need about three hours to pack up and head out. Uh... Turns out, we needed more like five or six, and we were still a bit frazzled trying to get out before dinnertime.



E really enjoyed sitting at the table and doing Legos. Go figure.



Since we were so late in starting, we ended up hitting Sharkeez in Santa Barbara for a quick dinner. Again, a few camera phone snaps of that are on the other blog. After we ate, we headed down to the Venture RV Park, which turned out to be a very nice way to kick off the vacation.

Again, Evan got fired up to do Legos in the rig:



We hit the pancake breakfast on site, laughing at the fact that we'd yet to cook a meal. But we were off to a good start, and we were happy. Once we had eaten, we took a quick ride/walk to the beach.









Foxy doing some crazy dance moves:





The boys playing pirates:







After the quick visit to the beach, we packed up and headed out. We made a quick stop in Oxnard for some food (again with the no cooking!) and a Target pit stop. Then we hauled our cookies to Newport Beach, where we checked into a Marriott, power showered and got ready for our family photo session with the amazing Tara Whitney. And man, oh man, did things jump off the tracks at that point. I'll cover the session and our trip to Disneyland in a post tomorrow. For now, I need to hit the sack. We've got to be up and out early tomorrow morning. We have a date with the Grand Canyon.