It started out like any other normal day. I woke-up, I looked at the clock, I brushed my teeth, went to the bathroom, ate some breakfast and drank some coffee.

And from there the normal day ended.

Because after those things, we loaded up our station wagon with all of the things we own that are not somewhere on a truck, drove away from our rental home in Tennessee and became homeless vagabonds, headed to Alaska for a whole new life.

It felt exactly that epic in the moment. And then we started driving and the epic-ness kind of stopped there, and was replaced by things like trying to keep my kids from fighting in the car and taking a bathroom break at a gas station in Missouri.

But here we are in Kansas — five states and about a 12 hour travel day after stops that I’ll talk about in a second. We camped at Clinton Lake State Park, a nice campground that could do a better job cleaning their bathrooms.

So what did that day look like? Here’s snapshot:

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Military people know that it’s very important, above all else, to have a great operation name for whatever it is that you’re doing.

It’s one of the unspoken guiding Defense Department rules. Great operation names make for epic operations. I’m also pretty sure that the more lame whatever it is they are doing, the better the operation name should be. “Operation Alaska Eagle?” Something they’d totally pick for the trip to clean out the porta-potties out in the middle of no where in the Arctic.

So, you can see it’s very important for us to have a good operation name and, because we’re social media folks, a good hashtag for our trip. The purpose of the hashtag is to help you find all of the posts related to the trip. Click through it on Facebook or Instagram and — boom! — there we are.

We hemmed and hawed. We considered “Operation Alaska Eagle.” We asked our Facebook fans. We mulled the problem over tacos. (You know it’s serious when …)

And here’s what we came up with:

#North2Future

Here’s the reasoning:

The Alaska state motto is “North to the Future.” Kind of cheesy, kind of epic. When I read that with a friend I knew we should integrate that somehow into what we are doing. Because, really, we are going to our future. Also cheesy, but entirely true.

At one point in the past year, before “Alaska” ever entered my mind but after we had decided that we needed to start over for the sake of our family, I had joked that if we were really serious we would go as far away (while still in the States) as possible. I said “Maine” — also north, also far.

I believe God has the best sense of humor, especially when it comes to playing with my expectations. So north? Yeah, we’ll go north.

North, to Alaska. #North2Future

Fact one: Anchorage, Alaska is a really, really long way from Clarksville, Tennessee where we are coming from. Fact two: Getting there takes longer than you’d think.

To give you some perspective, for the purposes of our drive, which swings slightly through a few places we’d like to see rather than taking the entirely direct route, the halfway point between Clarksville and Anchorage is about the Canada border in Washington State. If we were to take a more direct path, we’d only cut 950ish miles off our trek, and we’d miss some time with our Boise-based family and a few gorgeous parks we’ve never had a chance to see.

Plus, really, what’s 950 miles when you’re already driving 4,000 no matter how you cut it?

Luke is the master of our route. I did a little lose math the other day, and realized that for about six of his 11ish years in the military, he was in charge of some kind of planning in what is known as the “S3” office. So he’s pretty good at planning.

That’s why I (mostly) let him tell you about our route in these two videos.

A little preview: we headed from Clarksville, Tenn. to Clinton Lake State Park near Lawrence, Kansas (that’s where I’m writing this from). Then we’re going to Loveland, Colorado and staying in La Quinta — a treat from La Quinta which is helping sponsor this trip. (We’ll talk more about that later).

On Wednesday we’ll be in and just outside of Rocky Mountain National Park. I’ve never been there, so this is my first chance. On Thursday we’ll be staying at Dinosaur National Monument, followed by Friday at City of Rocks, and then on to Boise. This will make more sense if you watch the video.

Not to sound dumb, but Canada is a whole other country — and I’ve never driven through it. Luke has a plan for that, too — but it’s less organized than our plan through the U.S. The short version of this is: haul butt through Canada but still have a chance to see how cool it is. I figure by the time we get there we might be tired of traveling and not care at all how pretty it is. That’s kind of what happens when traveling with a 4-year-old.

Here’s those details.

We’re hash-tagging the whole trip #North2Future, so you can follow along on Instagram and Facebook.