Our road trip, resort hopping, HOT, HOT, HOT trip report: August 9-21, 2010

I just got back a few days ago, and while laundry waits for me, I was excited to get started on this.

We are a family of six. There is me, Jenn, my hubby, Sam, 15 year old daughter, drama queen, Lexy (or as she has taken to calling herself by her middle name this trip Ariana :lol:), 9 year old daughter and mini drama queen, Lainey, 8 year old son, Roderick, and finally 6 year old daughter, Bella.

This was our first trip ever driving. My parents drove down when I was a kid, but we have never driven as adults. I was super excited for this new adventure. Sam was really not excited at all! He kept checking every day for flight prices to see if they had dropped.

I think because of this new experience there was more drama and crankiness before the trip. Sam and I were at each other a bit. Maybe that had something to do with the fact that I had this horrible mosquito bite. I had been itching it for days and on Saturday, the day we planned on leaving, it was very red and puffy looking. Really half of the back of my calf was involved. I asked Sam if he had ever seen a bug bite look like that and he said no. So we headed to the urgent care because I was worried that if it was getting infected that it would only get worse during our trip. So we spent two hours sitting around in a tiny boxlike room waiting to see a doctor for a prescription. It was crazy and not like we didn't have a million things to do. So we were snapping at each other a little, and I think at this point I didn't even want to go on the trip any more. I was ready to just scrap it. But we went home and starting throwing stuff in suitcases. Sam would have loved to been packed already but since I'm the procrastinator it wasn't done. Needless to say we were running late from our self-imposed leave time. Sam said if we were flying we would have missed the plane.

But at 10:30 at night we were finally ready to go. Here is the three little ones excited to get started. Lexy was cranky and too cool for this picture.

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I have a picture of Sam before we left, but he insisted on loading the garage with the door closed so not everyone would know we were leaving on vacation so he was hot and sweaty. :lol:

We have a 26 hour drive ahead of us without stops, be we left Saturday night because at this point we don't know if we'll want to stop and rest somewhere. We are due in on Monday the 9th and I wanted to be there right away in the morning. So here we go!
 

Disneyfalcon

Well-Known Member
Woo hoo! You started your trip report!!:sohappy:

I still can't believe you drove 26 hours. And during the night too!! :eek:

I'm ready for the report, bring it on!:)
 

Disneyfalcon

Well-Known Member
We always drive at night, less traffic and the kids sleep. =)

Yeah, cant wait to hear more!

We do get a lot farther when everyone's asleep! :lol: But it's hard for me to sleep if I'm worried that dh will fall asleep. We wouldn't make it if we drove through the night. If we have to drive somewhere (which I avoid at all costs:lol:) we sleep for a few hours and leave crazy early, like 3 or 4 in the morning. Then dh isn't sleepy and we can know out 6 or 7 hours without a stop.
 

WDWmazprty

Well-Known Member
We do get a lot farther when everyone's asleep! :lol: But it's hard for me to sleep if I'm worried that dh will fall asleep. We wouldn't make it if we drove through the night. If we have to drive somewhere (which I avoid at all costs:lol:) we sleep for a few hours and leave crazy early, like 3 or 4 in the morning. Then dh isn't sleepy and we can know out 6 or 7 hours without a stop.


Yeah, I dont need that much sleep, so I drive pretty much all night and be fine. I will let DW drive for a couple hours though just so that I can get some sleep just to be safe. :D
 

foreverbelle

Well-Known Member
I too have to commend you on a 26 hour drive. My husband would think your nuts of course but good for you guys. We drive down from time to time and he is always complaining about the 14 hr drive.
 

Disneyfalcon

Well-Known Member
Yeah, I dont need that much sleep, so I drive pretty much all night and be fine. I will let DW drive for a couple hours though just so that I can get some sleep just to be safe. :D

She's a good woman! In the middle of the night, I would make it about 30 minutes if I was driving.:lol:
 

eagles

Active Member
i either drive or take the train. never ever fly. :ROFLOL:

great start to your trip report jenn! loved the pic, those 3 look happy.
 

mouselvrmom

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Woo hoo! You started your trip report!!:sohappy:

I still can't believe you drove 26 hours. And during the night too!! :eek:

I'm ready for the report, bring it on!:)

Sorry. I got caught up on other people's trip reports and then I took a nap. Sound familiar? :lol:

We always drive at night, less traffic and the kids sleep. =)

Yeah, cant wait to hear more!

Yep, it worked out pretty good!

WOW...26 hours...braver than we are and our drive is only 13.5. BUt atleast your off and ready for the HOT fun!!!

I wish our drive was only 13.5!

I too have to commend you on a 26 hour drive. My husband would think your nuts of course but good for you guys. We drive down from time to time and he is always complaining about the 14 hr drive.

My husband thought I was nuts too! And he did spend a lot of the time complaining. :lol:

She's a good woman! In the middle of the night, I would make it about 30 minutes if I was driving.:lol:

I am a good woman! :D And I actually do better at the night driving than Sam which we'll find out in a minute! :lol:

i either drive or take the train. never ever fly. :ROFLOL:

great start to your trip report jenn! loved the pic, those 3 look happy.

Of course you're a lot closer than me! :lol: They were so happy!
 

mouselvrmom

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Okay, so here we go again.

So we left the house with Sam driving. I'm not sure if he even made it an hour into Wisconsin before he got sleepy and asked me to switch with him. :lol: I was happy to take over so that Sam could try to sleep a bit and relax. I got us through Wisconsin and to Chicago. Then, the tomtom got me off on the wrong exit and I ended up driving around the airport. So Sam took over since I tend to get nervous when I don't know where I'm going.

Oh, one mention. I have a tiny bladder and Sam was already mentioning that he was sure we'd have to stop 100 times for me. But I managed to make it out of Chicago without stopping one time. He was the one who had the coffee and red bull and was complaining about needing to ______.

Well, we had to stop in Chicago because we were out of gas. Check this great neighborhood out. Sam was so mad because the gas station was locked for the night. The people wandering around didn't look like the most trustworthy types. So he had to wait for awhile.

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So Sam took us a little ways further, past the tolls since I tend to get nervous at night going into the tolls. Then, we switched again in Indiana. It was kind of neat to see the sun coming up. I usually miss that.

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Sam liked to take pictures of my death grip on the wheel. Really it wasn't that bad. I felt completely relaxed.

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HollyBelle

Well-Known Member
I'm glad to see you got your trip report started! I can't wait to read it all, but I'm still a little sad we didn't end up crossing paths. Hopefully there will be a next time.

The kids look so excited and I love all the cute Disney-related sleep stuff!
 

mouselvrmom

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
I'm glad to see you got your trip report started! I can't wait to read it all, but I'm still a little sad we didn't end up crossing paths. Hopefully there will be a next time.

The kids look so excited and I love all the cute Disney-related sleep stuff!

I know, I'm a little sad too! But you two were just having too much fun for us! :lol:

The kids were very excited. Then, they got to this point.

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Lainey is our one who never sleeps (or goes to the bathroom), she just keeps going. She was the only one to see our scenic tour into downtown Gary, In on our way back. She still has nightmares of the scary houses (more to come on that in the end). Here she is just hanging out. You can see that some of the excitement has worn off.

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I took lots of pictures through the bug filled window as we were going through each town. I won't bore you with all of them, but I'll just post a few that show how we're getting closer to the world. I actually think that this was a great experience for the kids. We brought a laminated map of the states with and the kids would pull it out to see where we were now.


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wow, look at those bugs!

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Woohoo for Tennessee!

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Chattanooga was so pretty. I was driving through it though, so I didn't get to soak it all in as much as I would have liked. Sam did snap some pictures though. And another one of my hands as I wound through the turns with people flying by me. Now I was doing the speed limit, but some people are crazy there and just fly up. I'm all for speeding, but don't feel comfortable with it when I'm not in my own area and don't know the road.

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Say yay for Georgia!

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mouselvrmom

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Now here's where the trip becomes agonizing. We seem so close, yet so very far away! Is it just me, or is Georgia the never ending state? We just kept going and going. The kids were excited to be so close though.

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So we were going through Georgia and it felt like we'd never get to the border. At night, we decided that we'd try to take a little rest. Sam wanted to just sleep a bit at a rest stop, but I didn't want to run the air and waste all of our gas. And I was a bit worried about getting into Disney and not having our room ready. Sam wanted to go to the parks right away and after a full day of driving my face looked like an oil slick. :lol: I desperately wanted a shower before hitting the parks. But I played along for awhile. I couldn't sleep, I kept imagining someone watching me. Then, I turned off the car and it got really hot. Bella woke up and started crying. I hinted around that a cheap motel might be good. So we went to a Days Inn for 44 bucks. I couldn't believe it. It was clean and fine. We snuck two of the kids in and slept 3 in a bed for a few hours. Then, I got a shower! :D

And we were back on our way to the Florida border! Nothing exciting happened here. We were just all so thrilled to be almost to our home for the next four days- Old Key West.
 

Coree

Well-Known Member
Ah, Jenn, you know we always drive and those photos are all very familiar to me. Yes, Georgia is the state that never ends!
 

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