Family Road Trip

As I mentioned last week, we have been planning a huge drive from Florida to Pennsylvania in order to visit my family. Well last Friday was the day, and we were up bright and early (before even Starbucks was open!) to start the long two-day trek up north.

And I’ll be honest, I think it’d bore most of you to read about our 20+ hours of driving time, so instead, I figured I’d let the photos speak for themselves. We went through seven states in all (including half of Florida) and drove up to my parents driveway around 5 PM on Saturday.

Dexter was actually much better behaved on such a long trip than I could have imagined. Ingenious parents that we are, we actually used yarn to tie the iPad to the back of the headrest so that he could have his own little TV to watch. It was AMAZINGLY helpful for keeping him happy and occupied on the journey. And we only had ONE diaper problem the whole trip. Luckily there are PLENTY of McDonalds in this country which allowed us to stop as often as necessary for bathroom breaks and diaper changes.

We also got to see some fun little roadside gift shops along the way, which were chock full of silly things to buy.

And other than the fact that I am pretty convinced that South Carolina is actually its own Twilight Zone which goes round and round in never ending circles (seriously, it took FOREVER to get across the state!), I still think the entire trip was much easier than I had thought. The drive home won’t faze me at all.

I’ll be honest – I wouldn’t want to make this trip all that often, and it probably wouldn’t be worth it if we weren’t staying for a full month, but considering I was convinced of the worst, I am happy to have made the drive up.

I’d do pretty much anything to avoid an airplane, so this is truly a much better option. Even Mark (who did MOST of the driving, poor sod!) found it a lot easier than he thought it would be.

And of course, when you think how much fun we’ve had since we got here – you can’t help but let any of the stress of the long drive just fall right off of you. After all, seeing my kid so happy with his family and enjoying the great outdoors is worth any amount of travel! See for yourself!