Are We There Yet

Destination: Washington DC/Philadelphia/Surfside Beach
Total Miles: 2,150 miles
Total Cost: approx. $700

People have called me crazy, insane, obsessed, a travel-freak, adventurous, etc.

And perhaps, if their definition of those words is "Taking three children (not yours) on a road trip for a week," then I am most definitely (in their books) and correctly labeled as crazy.

In my book, I am your typical 26 year-old, single RN, who has 3 siblings ages 11, 9, and 7, who loves to take them to places they might not otherwise see. (not that you nor I know of anyone else who is a single, 26-year-old, with young siblings). But I am normal. Most of the time.

This post is mainly to wrap up the remainder of my trip with the LPs (and Christy, who is NOT an LP but still one of the 4 youngest members of our family).

So...to tie up any loose ends...let me see...

Friday, August 3rd, 2012:

We had approximately 1.6 days to drive down to Surfside Beach (south of North Myrtle Beach?). The plan was to visit either Jamestown or Yorktown, and at some point, visit my friends, Laurie, Matt, and baby Nate.

Being the flexible person I am, I opted to leave Friday closer to lunch time (negating the opportunity to go to Jamestown or Yorktown). This gave everyone (aka Christy and Chenie) the chance to sleep in. Which was going to be needed more than even I planned.

But I digress.

We drove down the Eastern Shore of Maryland, stopping in the middle of the Bay Bridge Tunnel to get pictures and get everyone out of the car for a few minutes.

Supper was a most excellent affair! We met at Laurie and Matt's, then drove over to a family-friendly pizzeria. The pizza was amazing, and the cannoli was even better!

I thoroughly enjoyed spending time with them, and the kids loved Nate! After completely wearing everyone out, we headed to a gas station and hit the road.

Laurie and Matt had offered for us to stay with them, but since there were 5 of us, I decided against it.

Mistake Number One.

Thinking it would be easy as pie to stop along I-95 for a hotel...well, that was Mistake Number Two.

Five stops later, and literally everything was booked out for the night. The one place I found had only one room left-a smoking, king-sized bed only, room was all they could offer. And the little elderly lady who had arrived before me but had left her ID in the car with her husband...well...they looked like they could use the room better than all of us. And, she was kind enough to inform me that they had been to every hotel between a certain number of exits and had been unable to find a hotel room.

Enter McDonald's Large Coke.

I was set to go for several more hours, and at that point decided to just drive until I absolutely could not drive any more. Which mom and dad found out about, and began their quest to find us place. I am not even sure how many places mom called before finding a room about 20 minutes from where I was.

We came very close to having to drive through a town labeled as "Tar Heel" (I kid you not! I was so scared for Mr. Darcy, who was proudly displaying his Duke license plate, Duke Girl bumper sticker, and Duke Basketball license plate holder). Thankfully, we bypassed that town!

The short of the rest of the trip was that we got to the hotel at 2:50 am. Everyone fell asleep rather quickly, and we were able to journey on the next morning.
The beach was relaxing, enjoyable, and of course, we all received varying degrees of sunburn. 

So, my tips when traveling with kids (particularly long distance):
1. Get a hotel room in advance, especially Friday nights.
2. Brace yourself for the "Are we there yet?" question.
3. Come up with clever answers to aforementioned question:
     -"Does it look like we have stopped?"
     -"Did you count to a million yet?"
     -"In your own opinion and in 10 words or less, tell me what you think."
4. Never refuse offers of free rooms. Ever.
5. Do NOT be stressed. They can sense it and will feed off it.
6. Have plenty (and I mean PLENTY) of options of things they can do with the travel time.
     -videos
     -fun music
     -quiet time
     -books
     -memorization stuff
     -games
     -something new (music/DVD, etc)
     -brochures about places your going or have been
7. Make sure they have good shoes. Kids with blisters=occasional episode of whining.

This was one of the most amazing things I have done. Period.

Do I regret the money spent, the things not seen, the millions of questions, the tired feet, the tired Charise?

No way. And I would do it again in a heartbeat.

Pita.