The Big Road Trip of 2011

So everyone told us we were crazy.  DRIVE  to Virginia for Christmas with 3 small kids for 3 days straight? Wouldn't you rather fly? My answer to that is NO WAY.  In my experience flying with children is sooo stressful, to the point that I wanted to cry along with my kids on the floor of the airport the last time we flew (and we only had TWO then). Not fun. Flying involves so many other people, and is very scheduled (unless there's delays and then that's a whole other issue I have with flying), it limits what you can bring, plus now they charge you for every little thing, and they barely give you a drink and a bag of peanuts anymore let alone anything else unless you want to pay 10 times what it's worth! So we decided the only way we would make it to Virginia to see my family this year was to make the long drive.  And I'm happy to report that I loved it! We did things at our own pace, our way, and I loved the uninterupted time I had alone with my family. Because really, once we were there there's so many other people I wanted to visit with I didn't have as much one on one time with my kids and Kart.  But that journey across the country it was just us and it was great. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't perfect, but as a whole I loved it and would totally do it again.

A couple days before we were suppose to hit the road Owen came down with Hand Foot and Mouth Disease.  He was getting blisters all over his body, but especially around his mouth, butt and limbs.  He had it last year, so I knew what it was, but this time it was worse.  Then the morning we were going to leave it looked REALLY bad.  The blisters had multiplied and were a lot worse looking.  So we decided to have him looked at that morning.  She said there's not much we could do for it but said we could put neosporin around his mouth where the sores were the worst and open, and gave me an antibiotic for a secondary skin infection she thought he might have.  FINALLY at 4:30 in the afternoon we got on the road.  We decided to drive through the night because of our late start. But as the night progresses Aiden and Emma come down with a fever and Emma throws up 3 or 4 times! Hand foot and mouth disease is very contagious and so of course I know that's why they're sick. Luckily I managed to help keep Emma's mess contained and we had medicine packed to give them just in case which helped with the fevers. Aiden did get a few blisters but luckily emma never got any.  The good side effect of all the illness was that they slept a lot when they weren't up from discomfort. Unfortunately Kart and I didn't sleep a lot. Kart drove the whole time and I was managing kids who were each needing something at different times.  

(you might be able to see a couple of the small blisters on his face but the pacifier is covering up the horrible rash on his mouth.)

So finally in Illinois we stopped just before Chicago to have dinner and stay at a hotel.  A MUCH NEEDED rest for all of us.  We made sure to pick a hotel with a pool and the kids loved that. We ate at Chilis, went for a swim, showered and all conked out as soon as we hit the pillow! They also had a really great continental breakfast with 2 different flavors of waffles, sausage and eggs, yogurts, cereal, juices, and more.  I highly recommend the Comfort Inn (for a cheap-ish hotel you get a lot).

After resting up we got back on the road around noon and drove the rest of the day until we got to VA at 2am the next morning.  It wasn't too bad.  Although Kart did all the driving. :) He handles it really well though.  I did drive an hour that second day and that's all I could do with out falling asleep at the wheel! I don't know how he does it.  The road is just so hypnotizing to me.

The scenery was pretty boring mostly but we did see some amazing sunsets! I can tell you I hate driving through Wyoming - I couldn't get reception on my phone the entire state! There's nothing but land out there; not many big towns. The one redeeming quality it does have is that you can see every star in the sky at night.  It's a great place to camp, but driving through it was not so fun. The worst part of the drive there was the tolls roads though.  We had no idea how expensive they'd be.  By the time we got through all of them in Ohio and Pennsylvania we had spent $40 on tolls! We were ticked. We definitely avoided all tolls on the way home to Utah.