The Great Baker Road Trip Part 1: Driving

We left Monday, July 24th at 6:39 am.  The plan was to leave at 6 am, but when you're going to be gone for 3 1/2 weeks, you make sure to do the dishes and take out the trash before you leave.  Things get nasty in 3 1/2 weeks.

You also make sure to feed your kids breakfast before you go.  I know some people like to leave early and try to sneak the kids into the car and get a few hours in with the kids asleep.  Amen to those parents who can manage to get their kids out of bed and into car seats without waking them.  I can't.  I quite trying.  Now I just wake them up after I'm ready and force them to get dressed and eat breakfast.  That's one fewer stop we have to make.

Our first day of driving was to Greg's grandma's house in Princeton, Kentucky.  It's just over 8 hours.  We gained an hour by crossing into the central time zone, and we were on our first day so the kids weren't totally sick of the car yet.  We only stopped once for lunch, made great time and were there by 2:30.   I find leaving early in the morning quite rewarding.  You spend 8 or 9 hours driving but still arrive with plenty of time to play.

 Of course, things never go so well the second.  The first day of driving is a bit exciting--we're finally leaving on our trip.  Woot.  But the second day.  Not so much.  Add to that that now we're using family members as hotels and don't want to be completely rude so getting out of the house with all the chit chat takes a bit of time.  We were gone by 8 am and one our way to Greg's sister's house near Kansas City, Kansas.  7 hours.  Day 2 did not go as smoothly, but the kids were still pretty much champs in the car.  Even Zora, who was rear facing with nothing but the back of the seat to look at.  We arrived around 4, Andrea made a delicious salmon dinner and then we spent the evening at the park to help get some wiggles out.

Zora entertaining herself on the drive

I tried to take pictures of all the state signs as we entered, but some states don't have signs and sometimes I just didn't feel like it.  All in all we passed through 15 states.

Zora won the cousin lottery--she has a least a million cousins within a few weeks of here.  Here she is with Tillie, who's about 7 weeks older than her.

Henry and Peaches

 Here are a few other things I do on road trips to ease it up a bit:

1. I bought every kid a new toy.  They played with them for about 20 minutes and then were done.  They just watched TV or listened to books on tape when Zora needed a nap.  Just let them.  What else are they supposed to do for 36 hours in the car?

2. Prepack snacks.  I have these nifty 3-partitioned lunch containers.  Each night I prepacked them with snacks for the kids and said--that's it until lunch.  This ensured the kids would eat lunch at lunch time and not fuss 10 minutes after getting into the car about being hungry.  I repacked snacks when we stopped for lunch and said that's it until we get there.  This also allowed me to plan better for snacks--we're driving for 4 days at 1 applesauce a day per child that's 16 applesauces. Also saved me from digging around the snack bag for whiny kids.  I get carsick pretty easily so the less turning around I have to do the better.  I also don't bring anything that needs to be refrigerated.  It's just one more thing to worry about and take in and out of the car and after 4 days of that I'm never really sure if it's good anymore anyway.

3. Only drink water.  This means kids will drink when they are thirsty but not just drink because it's sugar like with juice or soda.  This cuts down on extra bathroom breaks.

4. For multi-day driving trips pack 1 bag.  If we were only staying one night at a location, I packed a separate bag for that night of jammies and clothes for everybody for the next day.  That way we only have to get 1 bag our of the car, plus toiletries, plus the pack n play, plus the high chair.  It's still a lot to get out, but at least it wasn't 4 suitcases (I make my kids double up on suitcases to save space)