BlogHer/Chicago In Real Life in 2009

So I definitely want to try and attend BlogHer next summer in Chicago. Chicago is a city DH and I had wanted to visit anyway, so we're talking about making it a family trip, but we'll have to see, it's a long drive (26 hours approx) OR fairly expensive plane tickets, and then it would probably just be me going. DH and I have long-standing plans to take a big "alone" trip next fall to New York, for our 10 year anniversary, so that's the priority for travel. I really want to do both though!!

So tonight I decided to check out mapquest and look at the route carefully to see where it would take us. We'd leave Alberta and head east to Saskatchewan, then down to North Dakota, over to Minnesota then Wisconsin and finally Illinois. Oooooh - so many more states to say I've visited! And while I've been as far east as Quebec in Canada, I've never been further east than Great Falls, Montana in the US.

Do you think such a long trip is crazy with a hubby and 3 kiddos? My best friend would likely come with also, she loves to travel and she'd be a big help to DH while I attend conference stuff! I really want to attend both parts of the conference, since I blog for both my business and personally. It's an exciting idea, if my new potential client comes through next week I'm going to seriously start saving and make it happen!!