Our family enjoyed a wonderful road trip this July. We left July 3rd and returned home July 17th, traveling 3896 miles in 15 days. We travelled in 19 states and Ontario. We ended up calling this our eastern states sampler trip. We were moving across the states fairly quickly so we couldn't see everything, but we planned a few must-dos (Niagara falls, church sites in Palmyra, the Statue of Liberty), and then we just saw whatever we could wherever we were. The attention span of our young children isn't too long, and they weren't up for a lot of walking, but we still got some exposure to new things. We studied a lot of maps and certainly had great geography lessons! Now I can name all these 19 states on the map, something I couldn't do a few months ago.
We stayed in a different hotel every night, except for two nights in the Palmyra area, and one night with the Thiriots in PA. We were able to use credit card reward points/money to pay for all of the rooms. We were mostly able to get nice suites with two double beds and a pullout couch. There were two nights all three children slept in the same bed (and Lily fell out of it both nights). Adam slept in the pack n play that we brought with us. It was really helpful to have free breakfasts with a good selection: the pancake and waffle makers were fun, and it was especially nice when there was a fruit salad. We often grabbed a piece of fruit for a morning snack.
Our general pattern for the day was to drive 1-2hrs, have an excursion, then drive some more until we reached our hotel, stopping again as needed. Adam usually napped during our first driving stretch, and most days he napped again. The kids generally did well in the car. We listened to music, a Star Wars audio book, and they read and watched movies or played screen games on our longer days. I had spent some time before we left putting together activity binders for each child. Anwyn was the only one who really used hers--maybe we should have allowed less screen time?? At least everyone was happy.
We kept a soft cooler bag with us that we filled with ice every morning at the hotel, to keep our lunchmeat and cheese and jam, etc. We mostly had sandwiches for lunch and ate out for dinners. We brought a lot of snacks from home: fruit cups, granola bars, crackers, cereal, etc.
Jared did all of the driving and made good use of Google maps to get us where we needed to go. We often left the hotel a little later in the morning to avoid the big city traffic. He was a good driver and navigator. We avoided the toll roads when we could, which took us on some beautiful scenic roads (especially in Pennsylvania and Vermont). When we didn't want to drive an extra 1-2 hrs, we paid the tolls (the New Jersey turnpike was a hefty toll, and New York had quite a few tolls).
While Jared drove, my job was to keep everyone fed and Adam as content as possible. I spent a lot of time turning around in my seat to talk to him, hand him toys, feed him snacks and read books (barnyard dance and moo baa la la la were favorites). He was happy whenever we stopped and he could run around. We ended up not using the stroller much, since he would rather push it than ride in it.
We were able to see a lot of interesting things and enjoyed the pretty drives. Most places were green with lots of trees. We were happy to have some days and nights with cooler temperatures then our usual 90 degrees plus in Florida in July.
It was wonderful to be able to spend a little time with family. We met up with Jared's parents in buffalo, NY. We did Niagara Falls (most impressive from the base of it on the Maid of the Mist boat) and Toronto with them, plus time in Palmyra. We saw the Seamons family in the Hill Cumorah Pageant, and walked around the Sacred Grove with them. We briefly saw the Thiriots at the pageant, and then were thankful to spend an evening with them in their home in Pennsylvania.
We travelled on three different Sundays. We made it a priority to attend sacrament mtg those days, and I think that helped contribute to the good feeling of our trip.
The children added seven pressed pennies from various places to their collections.
Stay tuned for more posts detailing each day of our trip!
