U.S. Road Trip 2013 Re-Cap

U.S. Road Trip 2013

Part Twenty

The Last Exhaustive Post

On Planning Our Trip:

The objective of this trip was to get across the country to California and then to Washington State and see as many interesting spots along the way. We were both eager to see our families and see old friends and National Parks.

We knew it would take a long-time. Dan took about five vacation days in all of 2012, so we felt like he could do this. (But this is nothing since he plans to take two months to cross the U.S. on his roadbike in about six years.)

I planned mainly with two thick United States travel guide books. My favorite was Let's Go USA: On a Budget because it focused on less expensive ways to see things and inexpensive food options in popular locations. I also had two books on national parks, one for kids and one for adults, and a National Geographic road atlas for kids. We carried these in the car in the side compartments on the doors and I would plan details on the day before.

(I also would dream up future road trips using said books once I was done planning for the next leg of the trip. That travel planning bug does not go away easily.)

We bought our kids national parks passports in advance from eparks.com so that they could get stamps at every National Park site we visited, and we went to a lot of those places.

Here's what our road trip looked like on paper. Each letter represented a place we would stay a night or more. I used Google Maps to plan and revise our travel path. At one point I had links to five different maps I had created as options. I finalized our plan about three weeks before our trip so that I could make reservations at campgrounds and hotels ahead of time.

Trip Logistics:

The entire trip cost us a little more than five round-trip plane tickets to California (what we would have paid to see one family), BUT we were able to see both families and a whole country of scenery and sites on that tab.

Of the 22 nights on the road we stayed three nights in hotels, seven nights in campgrounds in state and national parks, and eleven nights with family or friends. We saw eight national parks.

Dan drove the entire way. All seven thousand seven hundred and eight miles. 

We started each drive with the Avett Brothers playlist Dan had made. "I and Love and You" was first song every time we got in the car.

We used our Garmin GPS and road atlas for directions.

We spent one hundred twenty-seven hours and fifty-four minutes in the car. Our kids could go seven hours in one day pretty comfortably. We had a few twelve-hour days that were hard, but many days involved some sight-seeing and a good block of driving. We had ten non-driving days, or days in which we drove very little or none at all.

We loved everything, but these were the highlights for each family member:

Dan's: getting the banjo his Dad made for him, Grand Canyon,  Badlands 
Liz's: family reunions, Yosemite
J: gopher-hunting and other outdoor fun at the grandparents' homes
E: souvenir hunting (that boy is a collector)
A: Disneyland (more specifically, Space Mountain and the Matterhorn) 

Speaking of souvenirs, we didn't break the bank with those. I think we spent less than $150, including the $40 that each of the kids had to spend. In each location we let them choose a postcard to send to a friend. We also collected a refrigerator magnet from each location and I would sometimes ask the kids to help me choose those.

I took a small cash budget for eating out and buying said souvenirs.

We enjoyed really good health with the exception of (1) the brief migraine I woke up with at the Grand Canyon and (2) brief car sickness on the very last day. We washed our hands a lot and I wonder if that helped.

We ate from grocery store produce sections as much as possible.  My kids devour berries and sugar snap peas just as soon as I get them washed. We never tired of apples, sliced cucumbers, and nuts. But we did get tired of peanut butter sandwiches. We went out for fast food seven times on the trip and to restaurants twice.

Our kids' favorite things to do in the car were:

Play interstate bingo

Get the drivers of big rigs to honk (a very effective mood-changer)

Listen to audiobooks (the Little House series and Narnia series)

Write on white boards and laminated maps

Dictate messages which I wrote on postcards

Watch an occasional movies on five or six occasions

Read

Look out the window

Grab at each other and undo each other's seat belts to make each other mad. (It's true.)

Reflecting Back and Looking Forward:

We loved it and would absolutely do it again. This country is amazingly beautiful. 

I am glad it didn't kill our 2006 Kia Sedona. (See, you don't need an amazing car to do this!) The only car trouble we had was (1) our headlights died and Dan had to replace those and (2) the battery died twice.

I vascillate between (1) trying to convince everyone to do the same thing with their kids and (2) admitting that this probably isn't for everyone.