DH and I came up with an idea of a roadtrip - DD10 has been asking to go to Arizona (we have no idea why she is so infatuated with this part of the US!!), so we thought we could do a road trip - not particularly TO Arizona, but Arizona would be our farthest stop before circling back toward home in the West suburbs of Chicago. We think we can do it for less than a trip to WDW, which is out of our budget this year. Are we CRAZY???!!!
Here is our tentative plan (times are all approx. since we JUST started talking about this):
Day 1: leave home in the very early morning hours and travel to Memphis TN, arrival approx. 11am. Spend the day in Mud Island and swim at the hotel. Any must-do's?
Day 2: Travel to Oklahoma City, spend night - Anything interesting for families there?
Day 3: Travel to Albuquerque/Santa Fe - hoping to do something to educate the kids about the Native American History of the region - any ideas?
Day 4: Flagstaff Az - relax at pool
Day 5: Grand Canyon National Park (South Rim, obviously!) - this will be a day trip unless anyone has any fantastic, budget friendly ideas?
Day 6: Any other fun stuff to do in this area of AZ? Ghost towns, maybe?
Day 7: Start heading toward Denver - anywhere in between that we should see/stop?
Day 8: Denver - DS wants to continue his quest of touring every NFL stadium in the country, so we will probably do that. Anything else fun for families?
Day 9: Possibly another day in the Denver area, or maybe start heading east toward Omaha NE, stopping to spend the night wherever we get too tired to keep driving (day 8 and 9 are up in the air still)
Day 10-(maybe)11: Arrive back home after 7-8 hour drive from Omaha.
If you map this out, it makes a pretty decent oval right smack in the middle of the USA. DD's goal is to make it to every state in the nation, so this will add 11-12 states to her "done" list!
Are we crazy? Has anyone ever done this? My kids (will be age 14 1/2, 10 1/2, and 9 at the time of the trip) are good in the car, they seemed excited about the prospect when we told them about our thoughts, they travel 5-6 hours in the car every 2-4 months to visit family back home on a Friday then back home again another 5 hours on Sunday, and we drove to WDW from Chicago and back 2 years ago. We will have a minivan, so there will be plenty of room for the kids to stretch out and have their own space. We flew last year and all three kids said they preferred driving because it was more of an adventure. DH and I like to drive as well. There is just something about the experience of driving through places that you just cannot get on an airplane!
The other thing is timing. We would love to plan this for spring break, but our SB is always the last full week of March, and I do NOT want to deal with snow and ice, which is always a threat in late March in the Midwest - what about the other places? I am assuming ice would be the big problem in the middle of America at that time of year, and snow in the mountains?
If not March, what would be a good time? We would rather avoid crowds/peak seasons if possible.
Any insight on any of the above would be awesome - Thanks!
Here is our tentative plan (times are all approx. since we JUST started talking about this):
Day 1: leave home in the very early morning hours and travel to Memphis TN, arrival approx. 11am. Spend the day in Mud Island and swim at the hotel. Any must-do's?
Day 2: Travel to Oklahoma City, spend night - Anything interesting for families there?
Day 3: Travel to Albuquerque/Santa Fe - hoping to do something to educate the kids about the Native American History of the region - any ideas?
Day 4: Flagstaff Az - relax at pool
Day 5: Grand Canyon National Park (South Rim, obviously!) - this will be a day trip unless anyone has any fantastic, budget friendly ideas?
Day 6: Any other fun stuff to do in this area of AZ? Ghost towns, maybe?
Day 7: Start heading toward Denver - anywhere in between that we should see/stop?
Day 8: Denver - DS wants to continue his quest of touring every NFL stadium in the country, so we will probably do that. Anything else fun for families?
Day 9: Possibly another day in the Denver area, or maybe start heading east toward Omaha NE, stopping to spend the night wherever we get too tired to keep driving (day 8 and 9 are up in the air still)
Day 10-(maybe)11: Arrive back home after 7-8 hour drive from Omaha.
If you map this out, it makes a pretty decent oval right smack in the middle of the USA. DD's goal is to make it to every state in the nation, so this will add 11-12 states to her "done" list!
Are we crazy? Has anyone ever done this? My kids (will be age 14 1/2, 10 1/2, and 9 at the time of the trip) are good in the car, they seemed excited about the prospect when we told them about our thoughts, they travel 5-6 hours in the car every 2-4 months to visit family back home on a Friday then back home again another 5 hours on Sunday, and we drove to WDW from Chicago and back 2 years ago. We will have a minivan, so there will be plenty of room for the kids to stretch out and have their own space. We flew last year and all three kids said they preferred driving because it was more of an adventure. DH and I like to drive as well. There is just something about the experience of driving through places that you just cannot get on an airplane!
The other thing is timing. We would love to plan this for spring break, but our SB is always the last full week of March, and I do NOT want to deal with snow and ice, which is always a threat in late March in the Midwest - what about the other places? I am assuming ice would be the big problem in the middle of America at that time of year, and snow in the mountains?
If not March, what would be a good time? We would rather avoid crowds/peak seasons if possible.
Any insight on any of the above would be awesome - Thanks!
That said, we went in mid Dec right before the peak season. 
