Writing

     I've decided that I want to write--not just for fun, but someday to actually get paid for it. I secretly (not so secret anymore) want to write non-fiction, mostly about travel, especially about traveling with a family on a (very small) budget. 

     As a child, my family--6 kids, plus mom and dad--took lots of trips.  We went to all 48 contiguous states together and had great fun ordering the visitor's guides to the states we were going to visit each trip, anxiously checking for them to come in the mail, and then using those guides to plan out our adventures.  We crammed into our eight-passenger Astro van, hooked up the tent-trailer, and hit the road.  I can't say that every moment in the van was filled with bliss, but once we resigned ourselves to getting along (since we were going to be stuck together for a very long time) we actually liked being with each other.  We smelled the ocean, ate boiled peanuts, watched the sunset from the Empire State Building, and crawled through caves.  We hiked through the redwoods, watched Old Faithful erupt, and walked across the Golden Gate bridge.  We took turns with the map, figuring how many miles and hours we had gone and how many we had left.  We sang songs and played games to pass the hours in the car.  We learned from experience what humidity felt like, what lobster tasted like, and what alligators looked like. I could probably write a book about all the things we did on our vacations.  

     I want to have those same types of experiences with my children.  I want them to feel waves and sand on a beach, see the staggering heights of skyscrapers, taste foods different from what they're used to, smell flowers and plants they previously hadn't heard of, and understand how people live in other places.  I want them to learn geology, geography, cartography, zoology, botany, history and social studies, as I did, through travel.  

     In my quest for these family travel experiences, I am continuously disappointed with travel guides which do not apply to my situation--broke with four children in tow!  Most travel books' budgets are very different (i.e. much higher) than my family's budget.  We can't stay or eat at most of the suggested locations because of the high cost.  Guides that claim to be for families are, without fail, written by people who have one or at most two children.  Traveling with four children is vastly different than traveling with only one or two.  My feeling is, don't claim to be an expert on traveling with children if you've never been out-numbered!  So, hopefully there are other people who feel the same as me and I can fill my need to write and the market's need for better low-budget family travel guides.