Road trip season is almost upon us, otherwise known at our house as the season of brotherly love – or sisterly love, as the case may be. Because nothing is better than five people speeding down the road fighting for leg room and lap tops.
Actually, I jest, because I love road trips. There’s absolutely no logic behind that though, because it’s crowded, it’s long, it’s messy, and at least a couple of times, things deteriorate into name calling.
Nonetheless, I love them, and although the kids claim to like flying better, I’m secretly going to believe they love being cooped up with their mama for 27 hours.
Oh yeah, my husband drives, so I’m not sure how much he likes it. And I’m not going to ask.
Legs are Getting Longer
The good news for all of you with little ones wondering if it gets easier, the answer is yes. Traveling with older, more self sufficient kids is easier ten times over, and for me, ten times more fun. But there is the problem of the legs. Kids that used to be comfortable sleeping curled up in their car seat or back seat now have longer legs than me. They’re now taking up our storage space with their stupid, long legs. So we’ve had to make some adjustments.
We took out one of the seats in the back for storage of all our stuff, which is working for now, but as soon as humanly possible, I plan on getting one of those car top thingys. If you can get one sooner rather than later, I would recommend it. I have yet to figure out how we can manage to fly with a minimum of stuff, but when we drive, we pack the entire house…AND garage.
I know I’m getting old because I covet a car top thingy by Thule.
The Dreaded Hotel Stop
I’ll admit, I’ve become a bit high maintenance about accommodations while I’m on vacation with my family, but I’m not too picky about where we stay en route. If we can sleep for a few hours and shower, I’m good to go. My family though, has turned into a bunch of hotel snobs. They think everywhere is going to be the Ritz (we’ve never actually
Poor Kid gets Stuck Sleeping on the Cot.
stayed at the Ritz, but it’s commonly known as being a fancy pants place).
My husband’s solution to this is to just keep driving, so we’ve tried that a couple of times. When he started seeing deer on the side of the road at 3:00 am, that weren’t really there, and my eyes began to cross, we had to put a stop to that.
We stop at places like Holiday Inn Express and Comfort Inn. My favorites, of course, are the ones with the breakfast included. If you have kids, you know what a bargain this is. Also, a time saver.
The next morning, you always have to have the conversation about how, if you had just kept going, you would already be there. I don’t know why. It just is.
Some Things I’ve Learned That May Actually Be of Use to You
1. If you are planning to stop at a hotel along the way, make reservations ahead of time, or pick up a flier at a rest stop. There are usually good coupons for nearby hotels in the fliers. If you just pull up out of the blue, you will get gouged.
2. Let there be texting. Usually I tell my kids to put away their phones in the car. I like to have conversations in the car, and it bugs me.
Again, I’m getting old. See above.
But when we are on a long trip, peace will be yours if you let them text their friends, or even each other, which I think is weird.
3. Please, please, please do not try to cram your family of 4 or 5 into a hotel room. If you are road tripping, you will be spending all that time together. Look into vacation rental homes, condos, or resorts. This is supposed to be a vacation!
4. Get a big cooler, and pack a ton of food and drinks. Tweens and teens are always hungry. Even if they are just eating to pass the time, you can make sure it’s grapes and sandwiches instead of gummy worms and Twinkies.
5. Try to stop at rest stops instead of gas stations. Some are pretty nice, with a little room to move around and stretch, and you won’t be tempted to buy and eat a giant bag of Reese’s miniatures.
If you stop at a truck stop, your 10 year old son will ask to buy a nudie magazine and an “Edwards for President” pin. Consider yourself warned.
6. Plan your arrival before check in time. If you show up at 8:00 pm, you will be living in the unit facing the dumpsters.
7. If you will be in a big city, the cost of parking is criminally high. If you plan on walking around the city or taking public transportation (which is usually easier than driving around), research a less expensive place to park your car.
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Sometimes it just works. When my oldest daughter had one year of college under belt and my second was going to graduate high school in a year, I realized I only had a short period of time let to spend with them.
So, what did we do?
I packed all of my girls, age 18, 16, 14, and 12, into my minivan and off we went. We did a 5 week cross-country tour, put over 11,000 miles on my car, and had the best time of our lives.
We stayed in the same hotel room every night, spent the day touring, driving, or eating. Over the first three day, we traveled 1,800 miles, going from Washington DC to New Mexico.
For the most part, considering we spent every minute together, we had very few disagreements. And if we did, we just turned the CD player up. Oh, this was before wide spread cell phones or TVs in the car.
One plug in cooler, lots of clothes, card games, books, and music, plus a whole lot of fun.
It’s true. If you go with the flow, things can just be so spontaneous and fun. Glad to hear from you!
I LOVE that first picture!!! It is so typical of travel with siblings!
That picture does say it all doesn’t it? Except my son doesn’t usually look that happy:)
I agree with the let there be texting!