Monday, September 19, 2011

Road Trip Adventures... Part I

More Driving!
I anticipated putting this all into a single Beast of a Post, but then it would be a Beast of a Post with eighty gajillion pictures and slow load times and way more than you probably want to look at in one sitting. So, I'm breaking it up into three(ish) parts. Maybe four. Hopefully not five, because I just don't have that kind of stamina.

As you know, we recently took a really (really) long road trip. Two thousand, five hundred and thirty-six miles, to be exact. And I'm not going to lie, I kind of love that we rolled back into the driveway on a round number. The impetus for our adventure was to attend Grandma Bonnie's memorial service in Marion, Indiana. After about .4 seconds of pricing plane flights and imagining what it would be like to pack and drag three and three quarters children on a sealed metal tube in the sky, we decided driving would be the best option. We also decided that driving straight through was not an option at all. So, our first real family vacation was planned!

By planned, of course, I mean we had an ultimate destination of Marion, Indiana on Saturday morning, and knew we needed to get back home in about a week's time. We talked about hitting Atlanta on the way up and Indianapolis on the way back, but that was about as much of a plan as we made. And, neither of those stops even transpired.

Here's what actually happened:
road trip map
We left on Wednesday afternoon, trusty iPhone map in hand, and a whole lot of daunting miles ahead. Our goal for the day was to make it to Atlanta. Hopefully. We tried really hard not to put any pressure on this trip. Amazingly, thanks to a whole mess of junk from the Dollar Store, two new Leap Pads , my iPod touch loaded with dozens of horrible kids' apps, and a few Disney videos (okay, mostly just one over and over again) on the trusty DVD player, the ride went with nary a glitch and we made it all the way to Manchester, Tennessee! We stopped at a Microtel hotel off the exit and braved our first night all sleeping together. It wasn't magical, but we all survived and in the morning Wesley and I took turns watching the boys so we could each get a couple more hours of sleep before another mega drive.
Manchester, TN
Manchester, TN
We knew that there was no way we could do another long drive straight through to Indiana. Nor did we really want to, so after scouring the maps for a bit, we decided to stop off at Mammoth Caves in Kentucky. Unfortunately, we missed the tour times, but I think it actually worked out for the best because I can't imagine having dragged the boys (oh, and myself) up and down hundreds of stairs in the dark slippery caves.

Instead we were able to take the kids into the mouth of their biggest cave so they could see what it was like, and then we walked a few of the mountain trails before eating a delicious lunch at their local greasy spoon diner. It was the perfect distraction before getting on the road again!
Mammoth Caves, KY
Mammoth Caves, KY
Mammoth Caves, KY
Mammoth Caves, KY
Mammoth Caves, KY
Mammoth Caves, KY
Mammoth Caves, KY
Mammoth Caves, KY
Mammoth Caves, KY
Mammoth Caves, KY
Mammoth Caves, KY
Mammoth Caves, KY
Be sure to head on over and check out our Road Trip Adventures... Part II, Part III, and Part IV!



1 comment:

Pam (@iwriteinbooks) said...

Ao these are just darling pictures. Obviously my favorite is the first one. What else are noses for??

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