Danklin Odyssey 2024: USA

In the summer of 2024, we decided to have our first ever Danklin Odyssey. We drove across the USA meeting many of of friends and family. Lots of memories. Lots of fun.

Our first stop was with Bryan. When we got to his apartment he setup a telescope and showed us how to use it. This telescope was then gifted to Ellie. We decided to go for a walk to Pen State College. Eventually we were hungry and tried going to a few different places which were closed. On the way to one we even saw a baby bird fall from the nest (ouch). We ate pizza, checked out the lion and then headed back to Bryans before we started to drive again.

Our second night was spent at Dana's preschool friend's (Michele Redderson) home in Hillsborough, NC. We spent hours catching up and reconnecting. Michele's husband, Adam was there too. Michele's mother happened to be visiting too so we were able to see her too! Ellie really enjoyed having fun playing with Michele's kids, Caroline and Michael Archie. We enjoyed dinner at a local Mexican restaurant then went back to her house for several more hours of taking. The next morning we collected a dirt, had a delicious breakfast Adam cooked, then hit the road again. 

Our next stop only lasted about 2 hours: Dana's work in Hardeeville, SC. We had a nice lunch catered be her work, caught up for a while, then hit the road again. 

We finally reached our initial destination of Vivian's house! Well, Vivian's grandmother's house in Rincon, GA. Vivian lives in California at the moment. Vivian and Ellie met in preschool when they were 3 or 4 years old and had been friends ever since. Vivian's mom married a man in the military and moved to Hawaii when the girls were about 7 years old. They have kept in touch and wanted to meet up since Vivian was going to be in town on the way to Matt's house. So we dropped Ellie off with Vivian and continued on our way. 

The morning after we woke up in Savannah, we walked around downtown for a few hours. We stopped in a local gift shop and found a new ornament to add to our collection along with a magnetic pig that says makin bacon. We also took a tour of a Prohibition museum that was quite interesting and a lot of fun. Up until the end when there was 4 doors and 3 were locked and the last one said it would sound the alarm if opened. That is how we got out. It was so amazingly hot in Savannah that we very much appreciated living in Canada LOL 

We contacted them last minute (almost literally) and Doug and Dee joined us for lunch. 

We had lunch with Doug and Dee. It was a blast. We sat down and had pizza along side an amazing conversation.

Since Dana was unable to attend the funeral she got to visit her father's grave for the first time on this trip. After that we went to Waycross to see her mom and we spent a few hours talking and got some of the things from his house that she had kept for her. Then we continued on our way.

After we left Louisiana we went to in Franklin's friend Jason's house in Houston, Texas. There was a hurricane headed into the area on our way there and we knew we were going to get a hit but we weren't quite expecting it to be as bad as it was. The rain that we drove through was torrential and we were surprised we made it LOL. 

Once we made it to Jason's house we hung out with them for a little while, went to dinner, went back to his house and went to sleep. When we woke up in the morning the hurricane hit full force. A tree fell on his girlfriend's, Casey, 's car. She had just gotten a new Tesla not too long ago and it busted her windshield. Dana got Casey into her new favorite clothing company called just cozy. Casey loves just cozy now and has ordered some clothes from there too. They're also interested in the big blanket company. They have ordered a few of those to you.

 We hung out at Jason's All morning during the hurricane and everything was okay until the power went out. We had to end up leaving his house to gain Wi-Fi so Dana could work. Dana actually ended up having to take that day as a PTO day because she wasn't able to work the entire day due to no internet. So we left their house sooner than planned because we needed to get to a hotel for Internet. 

I know what this looks like, Dana went to jail. Well she did but let's get into the story as to what actually happened. We were driving in an area that had a legal speed limit of 85mph (137 kmh). Franklin decided to test the speed of his Tesla. Within moments after slowing down, our car told us that we needed to change paths and charge earlier (we had plenty left, it was afraid of our speed going forward). When we stopped to charge, we went for a walk that was offering tours of the old, historic local police station. Hence why we have these photos and this very fun memory.