Hitting the Road

 

Folks.  I don't even know how to begin recapping the epic-ness of this summer's road trip.  Like seriously -- we packed so much {spoiler alert -- too much} into our 10 day trip that it's a bit overwhelming to try and make sense of it all!  As the family archivist, however, I guess I'll just have to do my best to try and make it work.  Hahaha.

 Putting together the Road Trip binders.

 Sample excerpt from Alex's Travel Journal.  Spoiler alert -- he didn't really keep up with it on the road.

As Fraulein Maria would say -- Let's start at the very beginning.  {A very good place to start.}  This trip has been in the works for almost a year.  The serious planning of it began around Christmas time, and the formalizing of all those plans commenced during Spring Break.  With all of that being said and done, however, I still managed to feel harried and last minute as we got ourselves ready to go during the week leading up to our trip.

 And we're off!

I can't think of anything more tedious {and boring} than a play by play recap of all 10 days of our trip, so -- for today -- let me leave you with an overview, some observations, and an overall pronouncement upon this year's road trip...

The Itinerary 

• Niagara Falls

•  Canada

• Palmyra

• Vermont 

 

  

• Maine

• Boston

• NYC

• Crayola Experience  

 

  

• Hershey Chocolate World

 

• Washington, D.C.

So, YEAH.  There was a lot packed into those 10 days.  And just as a heads up, we actually nixed a couple of things that were on the final itinerary (Portsmouth, NH and Gettysburg, PA) AND we ended our trip a couple of days early.  Because, well, it was just time to get home.  Hahaha. 

The Logistics 

With six kids, two parents, and a bunch of luggage, backpacks, and snack bags crammed into our Honda Odyssey we traveled our course of approximately 3000 miles in style.  Obvis.  Hahaha.  Necessities for the car ride included a Road Trip binder for everyone (with each day's travel itinerary along with other helpful handouts and activities to keep kids busy), electronic devices, and food/treats to keep us rolling smoothly as we traveled to each of our destinations.

Fun Facts

• Bar Harbor was almost everyone's favorite place.  

• The Tweedles (i.e. Alex and Jane) preferred Hershey Chocolate World.

• The sleeper hits of the trip were the USS Constitution museum in Boston and our brief foray into New York City.  

• We ran into several different people that we knew while in Palmyra (a couple from our ward, a couple from our stake, and someone from our ward in St. Louis). 

• We got to stay one of the nights on the road with some friends from the MBA program and I'm so bummed we didn't think to take a picture with them before we left! 

• We needed two rooms at every hotel we stayed at because we have so many kids, which meant that our rooming situation for the duration was split down the middle -- Scott and the girls in one room (because Jane was scared without dad) and me and the boys in the other room (because Shoo Shoo only wants his mom).  Hahaha. 

• The kids found every single license plate for their BINGO game -- thanks to a barn wall in Vermont and a restaurant in Bar Harbor that had all the plates on display.

• And even though that was kind of a cheat, we DID actually see an Alaska license plate on a car parked on the street while we were in DC! 

• I collected my traditional new bumper stickers at every pit stop of our trip to add to the back of our van -- which now looks AMAZING despite what the kids may think.  Hahahahaha.

• Grace cracked her iPod screen on Day 1 and Scott cracked his iPhone screen on Day 3, resulting in Ethan being that much more careful with his brand new iPhone 7.   

 Grace's screen is just cracked on the bottom corner and is still usable, thank goodness.  Scott's, on the other hand, is slightly more distracting.

• And finally, I would love to have a vacation home in Maine.  Or Vermont.  Either/or would be fine.  ;)

Final Verdict

Compared to last summer's westward ho, this year's trip was...harder? Different? More exhausting? All of the above?  I'm still trying to process it all.  If I had to sum it up, I would say that it was MOSTLY fun.  Each of the destinations we made it to were awesome -- but the getting there was not so much.   Even though we covered fewer total miles this year than we did last year, it felt like we spent so much more time in the car.  Probably due to the fact that we were on the go every single day.  Except for Bar Harbor, where we spent two consecutive nights, every other venue was a one-and-done kind of deal.  Which meant that we were on the road A LOT.  And -- newsflash, I'm sure -- all that crammed-into-a-confined-space family togetherness time contributed to a perfect storm of aggravations and frustrations.  

 I know it's super hard to believe, but our kids can be pretty obnoxious from time to time. Even this cute little lump of sugar.  Hahaha.  ;)

Anyway, what's done is done.  And hopefully, as more time goes by, only the happy memories will stick to us.  But if I were to to do it all over again, I probably would have ended on the high of Hershey's Chocolate World and not even attempted Washington D.C.  I think it was just too much to tack onto the end of an already long and action-packed trip.  Live and learn, people!  Live and Learn.  :)

(And stay tuned for more detailed recaps of each of our stops.)