Crossing the country

This vivid double rainbow appeared the night before my family and I set out on a cross-country adventure.

We are driving across the U.S. over six weeks, setting out from Maryland and arriving in Palo Alto, Calif., around the beginning of August.

We'll visit relatives along the way and stop in some beautiful places: Yellowstone National Park, Mount Rushmore, the Badlands of South Dakota, Glacier National Park, the Columbia River gorge, and more.

North Ridgeville, Ohio, 6/23/08

This is my third drive from the Midwest/Mid-Atlantic to the West Coast and back again. The first time, I was 13 years old, and I spent 7 weeks with my parents and brother in a 28-foot motorhome.

On the second trip, my husband and I were newlyweds with a bundle of maps and a red convertible. That was 14 years ago.

This time, we're driving a hybrid SUV with two children in the back seat. We have two cell phones, two laptops, a GPS receiver, four Nintendo hand-helds, and two Kindles (a great electronic reader sold by Amazon. I had to buy a second one because I couldn't get the first one away from my kids.)