Road Trippin', Cruisin' and Photo Bombin'-Our EPIC Family Vacation!NEW11/5-BIRDS..UGH

[mommytothreeboys]

Excellent Start!! I can't wait to read more!!

Thanks!

Okay, I only have 2 boys, but after reading the first few posts of your TR, I feel like I am looking at my future! Subbing...can't wait to read more!

LOL! I hear ya!

Hello! Looking forward to reading more about your trip!

Hi there and welcome!

I'm here!! Can't wait to read more but I must say you are much braver than I. I would not have been able to drive over that bridge.

I thought it would be scarier...but you can't even see the gorge over the side. Had I not seen the bridge ahead of time, I would not have given it a second thought as we went over.

 

[mickeystoontown]

Missy, I'm about to from just looking at the pictures of the bridge. I can not imagine having to drive over it. I'd have been hunkered down on the floor of the car.

Oh wait, I forgot to talk about the other stuff. I'm now singing "take me home, country road, to a place, I call home, West Virginia.....". See, you're not the only one who dates themselves. I love me some John Denver.

I hope that you tell us more about the road trip game that you played. I was telling Hunter, just this morning, that I need to come up with a new idea.

 

[disneylvr4vr]

Joining in! I found your ptr the other day and used your links to read the WHOLE ptr in one sitting! It was funny, and i enjoyed it! Im glad i can follow along on this trip report and i can't wait to hear all about your trip!

Like lisa, i am very curious about your road trip game! Details please!

 

[awfullybigadventure]

I'm in! Loved your intro and can't wait for the rest!

 

[IATink]

I'm in! Can't wait to read more! We also have made the road trip to Florida before. I'm not a big fan of flying, so I make my husband drive . It's about a 25 hour drive for us, but I kind of like the drive down. Getting there is half the fun!

 

[mommytothreeboys]

Missy, I'm about to from just looking at the pictures of the bridge. I can not imagine having to drive over it. I'd have been hunkered down on the floor of the car.

Oh wait, I forgot to talk about the other stuff. I'm now singing "take me home, country road, to a place, I call home, West Virginia.....". See, you're not the only one who dates themselves. I love me some John Denver.

I hope that you tell us more about the road trip game that you played. I was telling Hunter, just this morning, that I need to come up with a new idea.

Jeff felt the same way about that bridge...his first words when I showed him the pictures were, "I'm NOT driving over that bridge!".

The simple fact that we have John Denver's greatest hits on our iPods should tell you something....

I will post more details about our road trip activity for you.

Joining in! I found your ptr the other day and used your links to read the WHOLE ptr in one sitting! It was funny, and i enjoyed it! Im glad i can follow along on this trip report and i can't wait to hear all about your trip!

Like lisa, i am very curious about your road trip game! Details please!

Hi! I'm so glad you enjoyed my report and that you came over to join this one!

I will do a post about our road trip activities for you and Lisa!

I'm in! Loved your intro and can't wait for the rest!

Welcome!

I'm in! Can't wait to read more! We also have made the road trip to Florida before. I'm not a big fan of flying, so I make my husband drive . It's about a 25 hour drive for us, but I kind of like the drive down. Getting there is half the fun!

I agree! I was nervous about the road trip, but the more I thought about it the more I looked forward to the adventure of it! However...the drive home was not so much fun....

 

[EastYorkDisneyFan]

The scenery we passed in WV was just beautiful. As we drove, we listened to John Denver on Jeff’s iPod. We thought it was appropriate….”take me home, country road…” I’m dating myself, I know.

Oh wait, I forgot to talk about the other stuff. I'm now singing "take me home, country road, to a place, I call home, West Virginia.....". See, you're not the only one who dates themselves. I love me some John Denver.

At my Grandmothers funeral one of my brothers played Country Roads on guitar during it. And then later when we buried her ashes I had brought along my iPod and speakers and it played after I had played Amazing grace so we just all stood around and sang along with it. The person from the cemetery even commented about it too. Also another time at a Bar in Toronto called The Madison which is two three story house joined to geather with serveal bars in it any way in one with a piao player in it one of my brothers got the paino player to play it for our grandparents.

 

[carissanboys]

Loving your road trip! I love me some John Denver. We've been to West Virginia once when we rented a house. Beautiful out there. I'll have to scope out that bridge some day.

 

[danceintherain]

What is with all this late snow?
We got what is hopefully our last batch until December....yesterday!

Looking at the photos from your trip makes me want to do a road trip. Although, a 2 year old in the car for hours would probably be more difficult to deal with.

 

[Marsheliz]

Looking forward to reading more...
My mom just passed away 2 weeks ago today and reading TR's are my escape from reality!

 

[Grumpy's Wife]

Hi I'm joining in to hear all about your adventure.

 

[mommytothreeboys]

At my Grandmothers funeral one of my brothers played Country Roads on guitar during it. And then later when we buried her ashes I had brought along my iPod and speakers and it played after I had played Amazing grace so we just all stood around and sang along with it. The person from the cemetery even commented about it too. Also another time at a Bar in Toronto called The Madison which is two three story house joined to geather with serveal bars in it any way in one with a piao player in it one of my brothers got the paino player to play it for our grandparents.

Cool memories!

Loving your road trip! I love me some John Denver. We've been to West Virginia once when we rented a house. Beautiful out there. I'll have to scope out that bridge some day.

I would definitely check it out. It's on Route 19 in Fayetteville. Very impressive!

What is with all this late snow?
We got what is hopefully our last batch until December....yesterday!

Looking at the photos from your trip makes me want to do a road trip. Although, a 2 year old in the car for hours would probably be more difficult to deal with.

I am so over the snow and cold weather! UGH! And I would not have attempted this road trip with a toddler!

Looking forward to reading more...
My mom just passed away 2 weeks ago today and reading TR's are my escape from reality!

I'm so sorry for your loss. I hope this TR can make you smile!

Hi I'm joining in to hear all about your adventure.

HI there and welcome!

 

[mommytothreeboys]

Before I continue any further, I want to take just a few minutes to go into a little more detail about our road trip activities. Now, my boys are exceptional travelers. They pretty much occupy themselves with their iPods, phones, and Gameboy DS. But, for a trip this long I figured I better have a few things up my sleeve to pass the time.

Our old stand-by is the Alphabet game. I’m sure you’ve played some version of it, but here is how the Petty’s play. Anyone playing is responsible for keeping track of what letter he is on at any given time. Letters must be found in alphabetical order and must be the FIRST letter of a word. Road signs, semi-trucks, license plates, and other cars are all fair game. No letters can be found INSIDE the vehicle. So for example, if you see a Rest Area sign, you would say “A—area.” Then you move on to B. The only time we relax the rule about a letter starting a word, is for the letter X. A word just needs to include the letter X to be fair game. The first person to Z is the winner. Inevitably, there are certain letters that cause problems…like J and Q. Quality Inns become hot commodities as do Work Zones when someone is looking for Z. I tend to sit this game out. Trying to read signs in the car tends to make me sick. But I do offer assistance when needed!

Next is the ever-popular License Plate game. This time I printed out a cool checklist from the website I am going to give you below. The boys love to search for the different states on passing cars and trucks. We also give bonus points for finding Canadian provinces and US territories.

New this trip was the Roadtrip Countdown. Similar to a countdown calendar, this is less of a game and more of an activity. I went on Googlemaps and entered the route we would be taking. I then picked about 15 cities that we would be passing through on our way to Florida. My list included Buffalo(NY), Endinboro(PA), Pittsburgh (PA), Morgantown (WV), Fayetteville (WV), Wytheville (VA), Charlotte (NC), Columbia (SC), Savannah (GA), Jacksonville (FL), and Cocoa Beach (FL). (I think I missed a few, but you get the idea.) When we began to see signs for a city, the boys would get excited. When we passed through, they would rip the note with that city’s name off the window with enthusiasm and toss it in the trash can. I was surprised at how much fun the boys had with this. It gave them a visual sense of how far we had come and how far we still had left to go. They loved it! And they all wanted to be the one to rip off the last one in Cocoa Beach. I found the idea as well as the cute printables on Pinterest. The blog asked that I share by directing you to the blog itself. You can find the Roadtrip Countdown as well as the license plate printables at
http://www.thedatingdivas.com/tara/the-road-trip-date/.

I hope that helps those of you who were interested in our road trip activities. Feel free to ask if you have more questions!

 

[mickeystoontown]

We've done the license plate and alphabet game before but not the other one. That's a neat one and we may end up playing that game. Thanks for the link!

 

[kamcole]

Hi! Fellow Western NYer here. I'm looking forward to reading more. We are heading to DW in June and potentially contemplating a cruise maybe in 2014 or 2015 - so I'm really looking forward to hearing more about your experience.

 

[danceintherain]

That last game is a really good idea. It definitely should cut back on the "are we there yet?"s.

 

[mommytothreeboys]

We've done the license plate and alphabet game before but not the other one. That's a neat one and we may end up playing that game. Thanks for the link!

You're very welcome!

Hi! Fellow Western NYer here. I'm looking forward to reading more. We are heading to DW in June and potentially contemplating a cruise maybe in 2014 or 2015 - so I'm really looking forward to hearing more about your experience.

So glad you joined in!

That last game is a really good idea. It definitely should cut back on the "are we there yet?"s.

Precisely!

 

[mommytothreeboys]

When I left off, we had just visited the New River Gorge Bridge and taken the daring drive across. I was now in the driver’s seat and Dan was riding shotgun. We pulled out of the visitor’s center lot around 2:45 pm. Our next planned stop, other than for gas, was in Rock Hill, SC for a late dinner. If calculations were correct, we would be in that area around 6-7 pm.
I don’t have a ton of pictures from this portion of the trip, and if I remember correctly, it was fairly quiet. The boys were well-fed and tired so there was a lot of snoozing going on. As you can see, Dan was comfortable.



We also went through 2 tunnels in WV. This is one of them….



As we approached the tunnel we got our first sign for the next destination on our Roadtrip Countdown…Wytheville,VA.



Jeff also felt it necessary to take a picture of this little gem….it’s the widely advertised Southern X-Posure. Needless to say, we are NOT stopping there!



At about 3:50 pm, we crossed into the state of Virginia.


I’m so glad they were “Open for Business”! LOL!

I really blame the lack of photos in this stretch of the trip on Jeff. I was driving and he was not! Apparently, he was either sleeping or playing games on his iPod because we have NOTHING! Dan was charged with taking the photos of the Welcome signs in each new state and he totally dropped the ball in North Carolina. Luckily, we passed through again on our way home and we were able to complete our collection!



We entered NC around 4:50 pm. We wanted to get through Charlotte and into SC before we stopped for dinner. We had eaten a late lunch so the timing worked out well. We stopped in NC for gas and also switched drivers. It was Jeff’s turn again. I assumed the shotgun position and we were off!

About stopping for gas…we would see signs along the highway for gas at great prices. But, whenever we stopped for gas, the price was always higher. We just did not have good luck in the gas game. We needed to change our strategy and start topping off when we were near a low priced spot rather than waiting until we were almost empty to find a gas station. Either way, we were paying a LOT less than we had to pay at home. The average price we pay here was $3.81 at the time and we were managing to get it for about $3.50 per gallon. We were ahead of budget even if we seemed to be missing great opportunities.

As we headed further into NC toward Charlotte we did see an increase in traffic volume. Driving through Charlotte was where we encountered the worst traffic of the trip so far. But, it was moving, although slowly. Compared to the NON-MOVING traffic we had in Northern Virginia and the DC area last spring, this was nothing! We’ll take it!

Our tummies were growling and, just in time, we saw this at about 6:50pm.



Look closely at the little blue sign…it says Welcome to South Carolina! I take responsibility for this bad picture. I didn’t want to miss it like we did the NC sign and I jumped the gun!

We started seeing signs for Rock Hill and I knew that this was a good area to stop as I had done my research on the DIS! We exited the highway and looked for a place to eat. The debate was, do we want a sit-down meal since we had sandwiches for lunch or do we want to get something quick and get back on the road? The overwhelming winner was FAST FOOD! We were all tired of riding and wanted to get to our final destination for the day rather than prolong it. So, we found a Taco Bell and enjoyed our burritos and tacos! My receipt show that we ate at 7:11pm. We are right on schedule!


With full bellies and an eagerness to get out of the van for the night, we got back on the road and pointed the trusty minivan in the direction of St. George, SC. We had a reservation at the Quality Inn there for the night. Jeff got back behind the wheel and we set off. The first billboard we saw when we got on the highway was for a Fireworks store. It said, “Bang is our Thang.” We all got a kick out of that and joked about it for the rest of the trip. Ahh…the things that amuse us!

I was getting tired myself by this leg of the trip and it was all I could do to stay awake to keep Jeff company. We finally made it to Route 95 and we knew our stop wasn’t too far away. At about 9:30 we saw signs for St. George and the GPS was telling us to exit.

The Quality Inn was RIGHT off the highway. And I do mean RIGHT off the highway. There was a truck stop right across the street and a gas station/fireworks store right next door. It didn’t look like the best place to me, but it was only for one night and we all needed to crawl into bed. We had been on the road for about 15 hours at this point. We checked in and were given a room on the bottom floor…the gas station/fireworks store was our view! The room was small and musty smelling. Dan said it smelled like moth balls. It definitely had a smell of some sort. There was a microwave on top of what looked like the kind of refrigerator you would put in a college dorm room. The appliances were old. But…it was clean enough and the beds were…well, they were beds. I don’t know if Quality quite describes this Inn, but it would do for one night. We brought our one travel suitcase inside and got ready for bed. I painted my nails before falling asleep to the sound of the truck stop! This is a picture of our room…



Despite the condition of the room, we all slept well and woke up ready for a new day! Our plan was to be on the road by 8 am so we were all up and ready to go eat our complimentary hot breakfast by 7:15. The breakfast was not bad really. We had biscuits and sausage gravy, cereal, fruit, juice and coffee. The coffee was terrible, very weak, but other than that the breakfast did the job. And to feed 5 of us on the road is expensive, so free breakfast is the way to go!

Jeff and I packed up our few things in the room while the boys went across the parking lot to the gas station/fireworks store. I have to tell you…Isaiah thought this was the BEST THING EVER! Fireworks are illegal in NY state, so we don’t have fireworks stores here. The thought that you could go to the gas station and buy roman candles and bottle rockets made Isaiah want to move South!

I’ll stop here for now but don’t go away! We are almost to the SUNSHINE STATE!

 

[Holly324]

Great update! Amazing how sleepy you can get in the car...how does sitting in one place all day make us more tired than running around doing stuff all day??? One of life's greatest mysteries, I suppose!

 

[lsenquiz]

I missed that you started your TR! That's what happens when you leave the DIS for a few days.

First, impressive that you were able to leave on time. We have NEVER done that and I am pretty obsessive about being on time.

Your post about singing country roads when you were in West Virginia made me tear up. That was the song that we always sang in the car when we were taking road trips as children. It was my mom's favorite song!

Not sure I would have made it in that Quality Inn even for just one night but glad you guys were able to get a good nights rest.

Can't wait to hear more