Luv Donald Duck said:
We just drove down from near Danbury. Loaded the car up before going to bed early and then got up at 3 a.m. and had the kids loaded into their carseats and on the road by 3:30 a.m. Drove till about 4:30 p.m. and stopped at the Holiday Inn in Florence, SC. The kids (3 and 1) napped, watched videos, and the 3 year-old really enjoyed coloring on computer paper stored in one of those clipboards with a storage compartment for paper and crayons ($6 from Walmart). We had the 3 year old in a pull-up in case of accidents but stopped often for breaks and meals.
On the way back, we decided to drive straight thru in order to avoid hitting New York City during rush hour on day 2 of two days of driving. It was pretty miserable and made worse by the fact that the Deleware Bridge narrowed down from 3 lanes to 1 lane in order to accomodate for work being done on the bridge -- took 1.5 hours fighting with freight trucks for a space in our own lane in order to get across the bridge at 1 a.m.
My DH did all of the driving and found it quite draining. We also saw a multiple fatality accident on the way down (we drove past just after the emergency personel had pulled 3 bodies out of the car and placed sheets over them) -- seeing that was enough for DH to say that we could fly down for our trip in Dec.
I think we ran about $200 - $250 for fuel for our Subaru Forrester. Tolls ran $13.45 on the way South and $21.45 going North. And paid $74 for the hotel room in Florence.
I hope this helps!
