The Platt Corps of Discovery: How it came about

A few years ago my husband kept talking about his childhood trip to Alaska that he went on when he was six.  He and his family traveled with both sets of Grandparents and headed out to Alaska.  It was the best trip of his lifetime and he wanted our family to do something like that, but not the same trip.  So, we kept a list of different places both of us had not been to but wanted to go.  Then our son started learning about Yosemite and kept talking about wanting to go see the big Sequoia trees.  Combine the ideas and bingo...our trip was formed.

So, the past January we sat down researched and confirmed spots in all the campgrounds we would be staying in.  Yes, we were going to be camping for an entire month.  This would be a hardcore vacation with lots of work.

I have kept a journal of how our trip went and am slowly adding it to this blog.  I have labeled them all The Platt Family Corps of Discovery.  I have put our campsite numbers in case you are looking for a place to camp and really like our photos and comments.  I will say, God was good to us in helping get FANTASTIC sites and they were blessings.  So, I hope you enjoy our journey as much as we enjoyed experiencing it.

Our family would like to encourage anyone out there looking to do a trip like this...just do it or it will never happen.  We didn't think we would have the funds, but our whole family drank water the entire trip; ate peanut butter and honey sandwiches and chips for lunch almost every day we were out there and we stretched the hot dogs, macaroni and cheese, bake beans and spaghetti as far as we could.  Our main cost was the gas, which thankfully (Praise God) took a downward spiral during our trip (for the most part) and when we did have eat out we all ate off the dollar menu at McDonald's/Jack-in-the-box.  It doesn't sound like fun if you look at it that way, but it enabled us to afford to go.  We also saved any gift cards we recieved over the year and those came in handy!  We didn't have to really pay for groceries for the first part of our trip because I used the Visa Gift Cards people had given us, as well as fast food ones too.

Despite the things we had to cut back on, it was an amazing trip.  Our kids learned the value of a dollar as they too had to save up their money to purchase any souvenirs that they wanted.  This was a bonding and building month for our family and I am thankful for the privilege to spend 24/7 with my whole family for a month.

Enjoy!