Road Trip

[jackskellingtonsgirl]

I am driving to Kansas on Saturday to visit my mother. DS is coming with me.

I hate road trips.

I just pulled up the directions on Mapquest. Precisely 500 miles. I REALLY hate road trips.

Just for fun I clicked "Restaurants". I knew that wouldn't go well.

Clicked "Seafood". Result: Long John Silver's
Clicked "Steak". Result: Steak and Shake (Are you KIDDING ME?)
Clicked "Family". Result: McDonald's

It is a good thing we are only going to be there a couple of days. My mom is a good cook but I hate for her to go to the trouble of cooking. Perhaps this would be a good time to try to lose a little weight!

 

[PghLybrt]

Well try and have fun! Maybe there are some local places to eat? Sometimes a little hole in the wall is the best place!

Do you have an ipod? Maybe you can download some good podcasts and listen on the way to make the drive a little better.

I hate driving too, however I may hate my GF's driving more!

 

[jackskellingtonsgirl]

Well try and have fun! Maybe there are some local places to eat? Sometimes a little hole in the wall is the best place!

Do you have an ipod? Maybe you can download some good podcasts and listen on the way to make the drive a little better.

I hate driving too, however I may hate my GF's driving more!

My mom isn't big on going out to eat so I doubt she knows of any local places. Her sister used to like this one Chinese place, but they got in trouble with the health inspector for having CATS in the freezer! The owners told the inspector the cats were for personal consumption, that they didn't serve cat to the customers.

The only iPod in our family belongs to DS. The last time I was loading songs for him the PC overheated and crashed, which set off a bunch of e-mails to iTunes support because he paid for songs that didn't load properly. I thought it might be good to load iTunes to my laptop, but I kept getting an error message. I never did figure it out.

So I guess we'll listen to CDs.

We have only driven up there with DH - never just me and DS. And the last time we drove DS was totally over the whole "in the car" thing by about the 1/3 mark.

 

[TuckandStuiesMom]

Good luck! Try hitting some fruit stands or farmer's markets -- usually some yummy fresh things available there.

 

[jackskellingtonsgirl]

Good luck! Try hitting some fruit stands or farmer's markets -- usually some yummy fresh things available there.

I imagine there would be some nice produce around, now that you mention it. My cousin lives in Kansas City, which is much more like Dallas in terms of amenities.

DS just wants to go and spend time with his Grandma, which is the whole point of the trip. So if my best meal happens to be from Long John Silver's I will deal with it.

 

[OrlandoMike]

Oh throw caution to the wind Thelma!

Roll down those windows, crank up some Patsy Cline and find yourself a Waffle House!

You're on a road trip!

 

[Sphyrna]

I agree! Live it up, be adventurous!! Most importantly, enjoy the trip!!

 

[OrlandoMike]

I agree! Live it up, be adventurous!!!

And not that booth by the window sister, no looking out for you! You park yourself right there at the counter so you can watch them cook your food!

And Blog by the minute!

 

[jackskellingtonsgirl]

Mike, wouldn't you rather, oh, I don't know, watch paint dry?

I haven't been to a Waffle House since I was about 17. And now that I think about it, yes, it was on a trip to Kansas. Because that was where we vacationed when I was growing up. DS has NO IDEA how lucky he is!

When I was little we would get in the car and DRIVE to Kansas from whatever state we lived in. It was BRUTAL. We frequented fine dining establishments like Howard Johnson's and Stuckey's. I ate Bugles from vending machines. Sometimes there would be a styrofoam cooler in the back seat that would squeak the whole way. No hotels, ever. And my mother was never allowed to drive - only my father. He smoked Doral cigarettes. With the car windows CLOSED. We would get to Kansas, visit our relatives, make an occasional side trip to Nebraska to see more relatives, then drive all the way back home. Yep. Nothing like vacationing with my parents in the 1970's.

The trips we took in the 80's were even BETTER, because my sister would get car sick. But I am pretty sure we only went in '82 and '87. We moved to Dallas in '89 so the drive got MUCH shorter. And I was a grown up by then so I could opt out of those excursions.

 

[TagsMissy]

this reminds me of the story of when my brother went to Fort Dodge Iowa with our Grandfather to check it out since my Grandfather lived there for a few years as a young child before returning to Italy and my mother asked my brother, "So what was new and exciting in Fort Dodge?" and he said, "They paved the main road!" This was probably in the very late 60s or early 70s.

I have to say while not a destination resort location I do want to drive there one day and see if there are any old records anywhere from when my Grandfather and his family lived there. I've tried searching on the internet to no avail for any sort of records but I could been searching the wrong things... I dunno. This would have been 90 years ago or so that he was there...

 

[jackskellingtonsgirl]

Enjoy your trip to Iowa!

I can't even remember what I was doing, but I stumbled across this website www.findagrave.com and it shows the teeny little podunk cemetery in Nebraska where my great-great-grandma is buried. It's accurate, too, because I have been there! I have NO CLUE who lists the graves.

I am not big on family history, but I do like old cemeteries.

 

[rpmdfw]

OMG! I LOVE road trips! They're so much fun!

And you really should give your DS the chance to experience Waffle House! It's too fun!

Have a great time!

 

[OrlandoMike]

My favorite road trip ever....first trip to Disney World...August 1971!

 

[jackskellingtonsgirl]

My favorite road trip ever....first trip to Disney World...August 1971!

Driving to WDW would very likely kill me. 24 hours in the car would be my idea of hell on earth. Then to have to drive 24 hours back HOME? No way. Absolutely NO WAY.

Rob, I will have to see if I can find a suitable Waffle House. I know there's one at Northwest Highway and 35 here, but we will NOT be dining at that location. Especially not with just the 2 of us. Besides, it would have more mystique if we went to one in another state. Like OKLAHOMA!

 

[TagsMissy]

Besides, it would have more mystique if we went to one in another state. Like OKLAHOMA!

Anybody else feel the urge to sing some show tunes right about now?

 

[rpmdfw]

Anybody else feel the urge to sing some show tunes right about now?

Yes!


But that's pretty much all day every day for me.

 

[jackskellingtonsgirl]

I like show tunes!

 

[zeitzeuge]

I love road trips, if they're no more than say 9 hours. My drive home to Nebraska is exactly 9 hours and to KCMO it's 8 hours. I think NOLA is about 7-8 hours as well if I remember correctly. Luckily, in from Dallas if you want to drive 3-4 hours, you can hit Austin, San Antonio, Houston, Oklahoma City, just to name a few.

We like stopping when we want, checking out sightseeing adventures, move at our own pace, stay in strange hotels, try diners/dive restaurants.

We pack the car with munchies, drinks, books and lots of music on the ipod, taking turns every couple of hours driving.

Just love it.

It might be that both of us as kids, had families that were not so keen on flying anywhere and preferred road trips. When I was a kid, my entire family drove all the way from Nebraska to Oregon to see family, down the entire west coast, stopping off in SF, LA, Anaheim (Disneyland) and then San Diego. Then we headed towards West Texas to see Grandma, then back up to Nebraska. We did that trip every year for as long as I can remember.

Miss those days.

 

[jackskellingtonsgirl]

Even for flights I am done after about 90 minutes. The flight to Orlando is 2.5 hours, but I can handle it. I don't LIKE to be in the plane that long, but I can do it.

I am pretty sure there will be no stopping for random things - the goal is to get there as quickly and painlessly as possible. Since I am the sole driver in this equation it is better not to prolong the agony. Not that I have ever gone through N. TX and OK and thought "OH! I wish I had time to stop THERE!"

I was pretty old before I realized that some people went on vacation to places where they had no relatives. We NEVER went anywhere that didn't involve relatives. My father's job transferred him frequently, so we only stayed in hotels if they were being paid for by the corporation as part of the relocation.

I was so proud of myself when I started going to Nanny Conference in the 90's - I could navigate the airports and get myself to the hotels and all that sort of grown-up stuff! WHO KNEW that was possible? My parents never even hinted that it was possible to go to a city where you didn't KNOW someone!

I like to go places, I am just not a fan of driving.

DH had never been anywhere except to visit relatives before we got married, so I guess it wasn't such an odd way to grow up. But he has lived in TX his entire life. At least I have lived in 6 different states.

DS will grow up and gripe that he never knew you could go on vacation anywhere other than WDW, and he only heard stories of people DRIVING. Poor DS.

 

[Sphyrna]

I know what ya mean. Most of our vacations when I was a kid was to visit relatives. We did have a couple non-relative vacations.

You don't have to be the sole driver. Let the DS take the wheel!!