There is a lot to say about road trips. I grew up doing them with my family, driving all the way to the Grand Canyon & Rocky Mountain National Park when I was 11 (and my youngest sister was 21 months...I am as amazed with my parents as you are). We live in Indiana and Google tells me that the Grand Canyon is 1800 miles away. That's A LOT of time in the van together. And I LOVED it.
We didn't always go on SUPER long road trips (although we, again, drove to Yellowstone & the Tetons but I was 20 then and my youngest sister was 9 so it was a bit different in managing kids at that point for my parents) and did many destinations within a day or two of home (it took us 3 days, with a stop at the Petrified Forest, to get to the Grand Canyon). I was always a little bummed when the trips weren't as long. Sure, it was a lot of people packed into my parents' Astro van but I also got to read a lot (hello, my favorite thing), draw, I designed houses on my clipboard, we counted a particular fast food restaurant & gas station (I always had McDonalds and won the count at the end of the tip), we played the license plate game (Delaware was always, notoriously, the hardest to find), and I always thought I would craft, taking along cross stitches and crochet hooks & yarn...yet I never ever did.
I have super fond memories of all the places I visited as a kid with my parents and especially of those countless hours in the van together. When we were headed on our beach vacation in June, I was driving through the Dayton area, a place that has many sentimental memories, the Anastasia songs kept coming up on my "musical - animated" playlist that we put on to appease the boys. Well, I enthusiastically sang along, remembering all the times my sisters & I sang along to that whole soundtrack in the van together on trips. Memories folding in on each other, even if I was the one driving this time.
Most of the trips we've taken with our boys over the past 8 years have been road trips. We've taken the Amtrak to NYC twice and flown with Luke twice (once for Sam, both times when Matt's work was footing some of the bill) but all the rest of our trips have been road trips. Sometimes it's just been a few hours in the car, when an 8 hour drive coming south through Michigan felt long. Sometimes it's the 20.5 hour trip home from Amelia's Island we had in June.
This summer I calculate that we spent approximately 52 hours on road trips together (including rest stops and gas stops and the inevitable too frequently bathroom breaks necessitated by kids who get a hold of their water bottles sooner than we'd like). We went HARD on road trips this summer and it was so much fun when it was anytime before 10pm. (That 20.5 hour drive had us arriving home at 3:45am). Here's a few things we've learned:
1) Kentucky Welcome Center's are the best rest stops
We drove through (parts of) Kentucky & Tennessee 4 times this summer (north twice, south twice) and have determined that the 3 Kentucky Welcome Centers we stopped at (I-65S, I-65N, I-75N) were the best of the rest stops. They were clean and brightly lit, had good picnic table situations, and the boys liked the horse statutes. Meanwhile, Tennessee is a barren waste land of very few rest stops and gets a failing grade from us.
2) Twizzlers are the only candy for road trips
These used to be our boat snack but are now also our road trip candy of choice. They are easy to hand around the car without little Skittles or such getting wedged between seats. They are relatively un-sticky. It's fairly satisfying to eat just one or two. AND we all like them. Twizzlers are almost entirely a road trip/boat ride/canoe trip down the river snack and it makes it special to have just occasionally in the (mostly) summer months.
3) Let the boys pick some snacks
On our second trip this summer I finally had the idea to take the boys to the dollar store and let them each pick two snacks for the car ride. They wouldn't necessarily get these entirely to themselves but they did get to pick two. Even Sam put a lot of thought into his picks and knew if he wanted a different thing he had to put something back. It was really fun watching them choose and I knew I was still only out $4. (Taking them to Aldi or Target would have meant a lot more!).
4) Take a canteen of water
I got a very old Coleman gallon water canteen from my parents' years ago when they were cleaning out their camping stash. We solely use it on road trips to fill with water and ice before we leave home and then I know I can refill my water bottle without relying on rest stops or their questionably tasting water. Even at gas stations I can fill up my water from the trunk and minimize my time in possibly less-than-clean rest stops (we visited a variety this summer).
5) Take a Brita filter pitcher
So we got to Savannah this June and the tap water was HORRIBLE. Ice marginally helped but it still wasn't good. I suffered through some but not as much water as I should have considering the heat. We figured it couldn't get any worse when we got to Amelia Island.
AND IT DID.
We got into our condo at suppertime and then the next morning we went in search of a Brita filter pitcher because we couldn't stomach more bad water. (It didn't help that while we were gone, suffering through this bad water, I saw a news story from back home that our tap water ranked very high nationally or globally in taste. We understood why.) The Brita pitcher helped immensely and we were drinking more water. We lent our extra pitcher to my sister on her vacation this summer and then took it on our second summer trip and, even though I had to work HARD to fit the pitcher inside our dorm room sized fridge...it was worth it. We will now be traveling with a Brita pitcher on all driving trips.
6) Make a Barrier
My parents had an 8 passenger Astro for much of my childhood and there were 8 of us. That meant we were often packed in there on road trips. We have an 8 passenger Pilot and there are 4 of us. The backseat is almost always folded down for trunk space but there is still an open seat between the boys in the middle seat. On our first trip we just had their travel bags (backpacks with books and such) between them. They fought a lot. On our second trip we built a barrier of duffel bags and pillows and it was magical how much better they got along. We were constantly moving pillows and things around because they would play and draw and talk with each other but then when they needed a break...we had the option and it was good for everyone.
7) Take baby wipes for the car
We didn't remember this for either of our trips this summer and I really wish we would have. Twizzlers aren't messy for snacking but the variety of salty things we took were (crumbs EVERYWHERE). We minimize our use of them at home but would have been SUPER handy in the car.
8) Take snack cups
This is another we didn't do but I wish we would have. We ended up often filling the boys' built in cup holders in their car seat/booster with snacks but those weren't the cleanest to start with and it got messy. We have the older version of these cups (which we still use quite often!) and they would have been great for the trip!
9) Withhold the water
And lastly, we are always trying to minimize stops. Pre-kids we would drive a tank of gas at a time and would hardly drink anything all day. Now we can't quite do that but do try to drive a half of tank of gas at a time which means nobody can drink much. We try to plan out our stops (especially when we are holding out for the Kentucky welcome centers!) and then about an hour before we stop we let the boys drain their water bottles. I'm all about being hydrated except on road trips. We all must suffer for a day! And then another day a few days later when we have to come home.
We didn't do a vacation in 2020 because it was 2020 and that needs no explanation. I was out of practice for packing for trips and forgot how much work the prep was to be away for a week (at least when I want to make our transition back home a bit easier) BUT it was so ridiculously exciting to be going anywhere and having family adventures again. The destinations are almost always fun and the reason we make these trips but I am still enchanted by the hours spent in the car together, especially when it's an easy 7-9 hour day (again, 20.5 hour trip put a lot into perspective). There is an "us against the world" feeling, where our family has each other and that's it. It truly feels like an adventure every single time and I love it. I hope our boys learn to appreciate the magic of hours stuck in the car with their family.
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