Return From The Clark Griswold Experience

2,000 miles in ten days.

The Great American Family Vacation.

This explains the extended gap between posts here on the site. Over the past ten days, we all experienced the passion and purpose of driving through Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Arkansas and Illinois. Along the way, we "knocked out" visits with every major family domicile on my side.

With two small children riding in the back, the odyssey became a constant carnival of children's movies and occasional stops along the way, the top two being the Iowa Children's Museum (nice work, Iowa City) and Go-Kart racing in Branson, even amid 102 degree heat in Branson, Missouri.

Now we return to the other end of dramatic weather, deadly flooding in southeast Minnesota and southwest Wisconsin. It's been an unnerving story to return home to and one that we'll all follow closely for the next few weeks.