3,298 miles, 10 breweries, and 1 Mega Meet - a July '16 Trip Report *New 6/5/17 - Link to new TR!*

[Dugette]

I'm here and excited to hear all the details! Glad it was a great trip!

 

[ariane37]

Here I've been waiting for you to start!

 

[jhoannam]

Read you PTR and ready to tackle this beast!!

 

[Leshaface]

I'm here! Woot woot!

 

[horse11]

Following along!! Love the matching shirts!!

 

[Imagineer5]

I'm here!

 

[chillitsanne]

following! Your family is adorable!

 

[Disneycampfan]

You had me at 10 Breweries! I'm in!

 

[javaman]

I'm in too!

 

[Disney Khaleesi]

Following along! Can't wait to read all about it!

 

[TheMaxRebo]

You're not talking to yourself anymore! I'm following! Can't wait to hear about all the shenanigans of your trip.

Thanks! Though if I was only talking to myself there is a guarantee that the audience would be entertained But glad you are here!

Definitely some shenanigans!

I'm in! Looking forward to hearing all about your trip and comparing notes.

Sounds great - definitely interesting in your feedback!

I'm here!! So glad you've started!

Great intro! Even though I already know you guys, it's still fun to hear about everyone's current interests I am loving Peter's little grin!

Thanks for posting Alexis! yeah, for every picture Peter had no interest in said photo or would make that grin

Yeah Phil! I love reading your TR's, and since this turned out to be one of your "best trips ever", then I'm even more stoked on this one. Yahoo!!!

Thanks Matt! looking back, it really was - just so many positives and lots of new things and amazing CMs!

Great start! I'm here early, too, which means I might actually keep up with it!

Must admit I have fallen behind a time or tow on your current report - but glad to have you here early!

I'm here to follow along in the festivities Phil! Can't wait to hear all about it!

Thanks Ryan!

Im here buddy!!!!

thanks, Buuuuudy!

Checking in!

Thanks for checking in!

Yay, so glad you got started!!

Yeah, I figured it would take forever if I really tryed to organize everything and then I would definitely forget a lot ... plus I really just wanted to get started!

Here from the start! Yahooo

- Yeah! thanks for joining!

 

[TheMaxRebo]

Following along. Sounds great!

- hope I can deliver now!

I'm here, thanx for having me. LOVE your awesome trip reports, and your kidiets are SO gorgeous!!

Absolutely Heidi - thanks for joining!

Can't wait to hear all about your trip.

- thanks for joining - next updates coming up!

I'm looking forward to reading all about the trip!

Thanks for joining! Next updates should be posted soon!

I don't think you needed to worry about talking to yourself!

Excited to hear more about this trip and the new things you did!

Thanks! still good when the first comments start coming in! Lots of new things and new food and just a good time!

You're off to a terrific start! I'm looking forward to reading more.

Thank you ... hopfully that doesn't mean only way to go from here is down

I'm here and excited to hear all the details! Glad it was a great trip!

Thanks for joining! Definitely a great trip ... and definitely was a "trip" not a "vacation"

Here I've been waiting for you to start!

Thanks for being here! I was eager to start too - even if I don't have all my pictures, etc. in order

 

[TheMaxRebo]

Read you PTR and ready to tackle this beast!!

thanks for coming over from the PTR ... "beast" is a good word!

I'm here! Woot woot!

"woot woot" indeed!

Following along!! Love the matching shirts!!

Thanks for joining! We actually made the shirts for our Disneyland trip but they still fit so figured we would use them again. We did the matching shirts for the scavenger hunt

I'm here!

Thanks for joining!

following! Your family is adorable!

Thanks for following and thank you for the compliment!

You had me at 10 Breweries! I'm in!

Glad to attract you in! I thought 10 breweries considering we were traveling with 3 young kids was pretty good!

I'm in too!

Thanks for joining!

Following along! Can't wait to read all about it!

Thanks for following - next update coming up!

 

[Aimros]

Joining in! Disney and craft breweries are two of DH & I's favorite things, as well. And since I am currently pregnant with our first soon-to-be Disney fanatic, I will follow along and live vicariously through your beer drinking and Disney adventuring!

 

[TheMaxRebo]

Part 4: Traveling to Disney - Day 1 - 3
Leaving the nest, heading to Pennsylvania​

As mentioned, I will try to keep the bulk of this trip report to the Disney time, but the travel was a key part of the overall trip that I do want to cover it as well.

Those that read my PTR (see my signature for link *cough* self promotion *cough*) know that we had a bit of panic the weekend before we left when we realized it was "OMG THE WEEKEND BEFORE WE LEAVE!!!" and hadn't gotten a lot of packing done. Generally our system is that Judi puts lists together of what needs to be packed and sets out piles of clothes and stuff and then I work on getting it into suitcases, etc. Well, this was a new experience for us as we had multiple stops and would need to do laundry, etc. So while maybe not as early in the process as we both would have liked, Judi did a great job researching packing lists for road trips and then organized the clothes by day we would need them. Then we actually put each outfit in a ziplock bag and labeled it for what day it was. Then we tried to pack smaller bags per day (or at least stop) rather than by person so we wouldn't need to bring in 5 bags at each stop.

For the most part it actually worked out well, though we still had the separate swimming bag and pajama bag and stuff, but spending that time organizing definitely helped.

We were leaving on Thursday, July 14th after I got home from work. Ideally I would have left early but it just didn't happen with trying to finish things and assign work to others before I left. Once home I had to pack up the car (Toyota Sienna for those keeping score at home) - including moving in the dog create as we would be taking the dogs to our first stop which was Judi's parents' house in Pennsylvania. For reference purposed, here they are - Cole is on the left and Edgar on the right:

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With the dog crate in, we folded part of the back seat down). Overall I think I fit everything in pretty well - including 2 strollers (a double and a single) - so we could still see out back. The kids got settled and were pretty happy to be going. Oh, you might be able to see cases that the kids are holding. Judi made these neat Lego travel cases that had lego bases glued to them and then a variety of pieces for each kid that made for a good activity.

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And with that I snapped a picture showing that for the trip we were at mile 0 and we headed out at about 7:15pm which really wasn't too bad.

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We stopped at Panera Bread for dinner and got gas at one point and made a potty break or two - but overall we made pretty good time pulling into her parent's driveway just about midnight. Kids of course slept during the drive so were now wide awake and excited to see Nana and Grandpa so was probably close to 1am by the time we got everyone settled

While there we didn't have any big plans. I wound up working a bit as I had a few calls that just couldn't be done earlier and then Judi had to make a run to the store as she realized she forgot to bring extras of one important clothing item (let's just say they provide her support). I also re-packed the car as we took the dog create out and were leaving one suitcase there. We also moved Peter's car seat to the backseat for the drive as well.

We then made dinner which included corn on the cob which Emma apparently went to town on:

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And then when we were getting ready for bed one of Olivia's teeth fell out. She was excited but of course nervous that the Tooth Fairy wouldn't find her there. We were, of course unprepared for this as we usually leave a golden dollar coin for her, but didn't have any with us nor had her Tooth Fairy pillow. It worked out in the end as Nana had a box to put it in and we put a regular dollar in it.

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We spend all of Friday there and then went to bed a bit on the early side as we wanted to get an early start Saturday morning.

 

[TheMaxRebo]

Part 5: Traveling to Disney - Day 3
Heading towards Durham, NC and a stop at the Air and Space Museum​

We managed to get a pretty early start in the morning, leaving just before 7:30am. The reason I wanted to leave early was to have time for an extra stop - one that was recommended to me by a friend and one I am glad we did, though wish we had more time at ... but more on that later

First, a millage check at where we started the day:

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Then a look back at the kids who were in good spirits! You can see that now Peter is in the back and they have a bin in between them of activities. You can also see Olivia holding a tablet - each kid had a kids Kindle which for the most part worked out well, though they didn't quite get that some apps didn't work as we weren't on wifi. Definitely glad we got three of them as they aren't great at sharing them

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Tried to take a few pictures of interesting things we saw along the way. Probably hard to tell but in the first picture below the American flag we past was just enormous. The bridge is the one that took us over the Patomic and was kinda cool as it was really long but made up of these shorter sections of support. Then we past this antique store - which must be good as their webaddress is reallygreatfinds.com

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After about 3 hours we got to our stop, which was the National Air and Space Museum. Well, there are two locations and we were going to stop at the one that is not in downtown DC, the Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia. As it is part of the Smithsonian, admission was free (just had to pay for parking) so thought even if we only were there for a short amount of time it would be a good stop.

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Well, let me tell you, we could have spent so much longer there and definitely felt like we had to rush a bit - ultimately leaving at just about noon. I am glad we got there when we did (about 10:20) as the line was out the door when we were leaving. I took soooo many pictures but thought I would share a few with you all - so meany neat planes are in there and it is just crammed full. And they have walkways at three different levels so you can see the planes at different angles.

First is right as you come in and are just overwhlemed by all the planes. They are sort of arranged from oldest to newest, so these are some of the oldest planes. Then there is a walkway right through the middle and I first have a picture of your right which has the Enola Gay and the Blackbird, and then to the left which has a Concord jet:

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Then a close up of the Enola Gay where they replaced some of the panels with plexiglass where you could see in. For those not familiar, the Enola Gay is is a Boeing B-29 Superfortress bomber and was the plane that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan

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One thing I loved about the museum was they had a lot of people around willing to talk to you about the planes and they were so friendly and you could tell they were really interested in the subject manner. One of them engaged Peter and spent quite a while pointing out things too him (they had these laser pointers they would use to point at what they were talking about). I almost felt bad that we had to move on as I would have loved to stay and talk even longer but we didn't have that much time.

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we then walked to the back room where they have all the space artifacts included the entire Space Shuttle Discovery. This is one area where if we had more time we would have explored more - but still neat to see in person and up close:

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They also had stations set up where they would teach kids about different aspects of flight. We stopped at one covering propellers and then one about plane wings and lift and how they can measure it and could compare single sings to bi-wing planes and stuff - really neat!

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One of the coolest planes was the SR-71A "Blackbird" - which can go Mach 3+ and has low radar detecting abilities. Here it is below and you can see the Space Shuttle in the background.

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There is also an observatory you can go up to and see Dulles airport which is close and mountains in the distance etc. Honestly, while it was cool to watch the planes takeoff and land, looking back I think I would have rather spent more time looking at the exhibits!

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After, we stopped for a quick bit to eat and then headed towards our destination for the day - Durham, NC where we would be meeting up with some friends of Judi and mine that went to college with us.

TTFN

 

[TheMaxRebo]

Joining in! Disney and craft breweries are two of DH & I's favorite things, as well. And since I am currently pregnant with our first soon-to-be Disney fanatic, I will follow along and live vicariously through your beer drinking and Disney adventuring!

Thanks for joining! Glad to have some fellow craft beer lovers here! Congratulations on the coming Disney fan!

 

[MarbleBob]

Yahoo! It would have been cool if Olivia's tooth had waited a couple days to fall out. (We've had a couple fall out at WDW before and it's fun having Tinker Bell bring the dollar.) But cool that Nana was able to help make it special with her little box.

Seeing your car with all the kids loaded in brings back a flood of memories... of pack n' plays, car seats, and multiple strollers. In some ways I don't miss having to pack that stuff up in the least, and in other ways, I miss it terribly...

I like the idea of seeing your odometer as you start off each leg in the trip. Cool!

And wow, your photos of the Air and Space Museum are awesome. I visited it once when I was around 14 or 15 and mostly forgot about it. After seeing your updates, I TOTALLY want to go see it again. I mean, just wow. Look at all that cool stuff!!!

I'm stoked to be following along on your road trip travels, looking forward to seeing what else you came across!

 

[OhioStateBuckeye]

I'm excited to read this, my boyfriend and I were there for the Mega Meet so I want to hear your stories about it.

I love road trips and getting ready for road trips. I think it is because my family drove to Disney the few times we went when I was younger. We usually went when it was still cold in Pennsylvania so it was great to start the trip out in winter coats then eventually take them off for a rest stop somewhere in the Carolinas.

That museum looks like so much fun! Maybe I'll need to keep it in mind.

 

[pucknasty]

Well, my next road trip will definitely be there! My dad and I love aircraft and that looks like blast.