Our 45th anniversary.

“We started a tradition in 2001 for our 25th anniversary and did a one-week vacation for every five years of marriage. We call them our Anniverary Trips (misspelling is intentional due to a typo on T-shirts we had printed for the trip).

For this trip we flew to Orlando, FL, for a week with friends and our two oldest granddaughters at Disney World and Cocoa Beach. We followed that with four more weeks on the road covering 12 different states. It took some serious planning as it was less than a month after the 9/11 disaster. This trip included a stay at our WorldMark resort in Branson, MO, and RCI in Orlando. We covered tourist traps in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, South Carolina, and Tennessee.

Our second trip was in 2006 for 30 years of marriage, and we spent 6 weeks in Hawaii — with a week each on the Big Island (RCI), Maui, Molokai, Kauai, Oahu, and then a cruise around the islands. 

Our 35th anniversary in 2011 was broken into three individual trips over three years. Trip No. 1 was a cruise to Alaska, eight days in Victoria, BC (WorldMark), and four days in Birch Bay (WorldMark). Trip No. 2 was three days in Boston, a seven-day cruise to Montreal, three days in Niagara Falls, and a 10-day drive from there through western New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and D.C. Trip No. 3 was a 10-day cruise through the Panama Canal from Los Angeles, CA (WorldMark) to Fort Lauderdale, FL.

Finally, for our 40th in 2016, my wife told me that 8 weeks on the road would be too much, so we changed it to 40 days. It started in Los Angeles, CA (WorldMark) with a flight to Miami, FL and then a seven-day cruise through the western Caribbean, a seven-day cruise through the southern Caribbean, a week at the Atlantis resort in the Bahamas, another seven-day cruise through the eastern Caribbean and finally a four-day stop in Key West, FL.

So what’s being planned for our 45th? We’re glad you asked! This coming June we are planning to take a 45-day road trip in our two-seat MB Roadster and driving through Nevada, Idaho, Wyoming, Montana, then into Canada with stops in Calgary, Lake Louise, Whistler (WorldMark), Vancouver (WorldMark). Finally back to the U.S. with stops in Seattle (WorldMark), Portland, Bend (WorldMark), and Klamath Falls (WorldMark) before returning home.

Whew!!! We hope you all feel inspired and try this someday!”

Dave and Dot M.
Sacramento, California.