Day 30 – Lessons and Insights

I’m really glad I took this trip. Besides the experience of doing something I’ve always wanted to do, I learned a lot about how to take a driving trip with children, and now I think Mark and I both are more open to considering other driving trips (albeit not so long) in the future. Here are my thoughts and tips:

1. I learned we could do it. Before doing this, the general thinking was that the kids would go nuts and drive us nuts. In some cases we did, but kids are incredibly adaptable, and once the routines and entertainment gets figured out, they not only handled it, but also enjoyed themselves for the most part.

2. The kids will get pent up energy from being in the car for a long time and they need a lot of breaks, preferably breaks where they can run around. My big mistake was not stopping at enough parks for picnic lunches. I started out that way, but then caught up in tourist attractions and getting to my next destination. On the days I didn’t make time for the kids to run around and be silly, they found ways to do it anyway, usually embarrassing me in public places. Those were the times when we had the most family strife.

3. Plan to get lost so it doesn’t stress you out so much – especially in crowded places like big cities. Allow extra time, and plan for unexpected things like detours, heavy traffic, car problems, kids getting splinters, and other delays.

4. When I’m alone with the kids I don’t drive at night and I have extra AAA coverage. I also had to learn to do the basic mechanical things that I usually rely on Mark for, like checking the oil and tire pressure.

5. With the kids and just me, it’s fairly comfortable to do a 6 hour driving leg in the day. Typically we do it in two three hour chunks with a nice two hour break for an activity in the middle. This is the activity that should include running around. Then, each three hour leg includes at least one quick bathroom break and at least one movie on the car-powered DVD player. The kids also have other fun activities to do in the car, like Nintendo DS, and their favorite toys. Reading only works if they don’t get car sick. If you can work in time with the kids sleeping, you can do an additional two driving hours or so. And with another adult, like Mark in the car, we can do even more – but it’s not as fun if it’s several days in a row.

6. At least my kids like interactive museums and multi-media entertainment. They also need a frame of reference to care about what they see. For example, the reason the meteor crater was interesting to Justin is he knows a meteor had something to do with the extinction of the dinosaurs. But they weren’t interested at all in things that fascinated Mark and I, like the plane that flew at Kitty Hawk for example.

7. Having friends and family to connected with at various points in the journey makes it really fun. But doing one extreme (all friends and family) or the other extreme (all hotels or camping) can get old if it’s too many days in a row. We loved the balance we had. Our kids had other kids to play with, I had other adults to talk with, and the days I spent with family I was able to take time to do a few loads of laundry, wash the car, and get re-organized and re-calibrated.

8. It’s good to keep even a basic travel journal because by the end of the trip, it’s easy to forget things that happened in the beginning. But even this blog was a little much for me to keep up with – as you’ll note I had to catch up on several entries that I missed. For me what worked best was jotting down in a brief log short notes on the things I wanted to remember, and then later elaborating in a journal or blog when I had the time. Or, alternatively, I could learn to be a more concise writer – and make shorter blog entries!

For now, this entry will wrap up my writing, until I have another family adventure to write about. It might not be a trip – it might be the adventure of finding a babysitter, or balancing life being a mom and running a business. So stay tuned, and I’ll tune in again soon!