My husband and I are no strangers to road trips. Throughout our 12 years together we’ve criss-crossed the country from one side to the other and then back again. We’re drivers. We’ve made road trips to move and to go on vacation.
With so many miles under our belt, we’ve had road trips both good and bad. Though, as you can imagine the more difficult road trips tend to stick out in one’s mind.
Well, we thought we did. Then we adopted dogs. And had kids. That definitely complicated things more than we could have ever imagined.
When we were living in Colorado and my husband saw dark clouds on the job front, we drove to Texas for his job interview. We drove at night when Cakes slept most of the trip and everything went really well. So we thought we were prepared when we made the big move down.
When we were living in Colorado and my husband saw dark clouds on the job front, we drove to Texas for his job interview. We drove at night when Cakes slept most of the trip and everything went really well. So we thought we were prepared when we made the big move down.In preparation of our move to Texas, I took two separate trips alone with Cakes (with connections) to house hunt. Since she was another month older than our first road trip and things got a little more difficult but not unbearable. Take 30 days for closing on our house and another month older for Cakes and our road trip to Texas was definitely memorable. And not in a good way.
Even leaving at night and traveling during non waking hours for the majority of the trip, 16 hours on the road isn’t fun for a 10 month old baby. Being mobile and confined to a car seat for extended periods does not make for a happy girl. Things reached a pinnacle as we reached Waco and the nonstop screams continued until we hit our interim home in south Austin.
Three hours of nonstop crying and screaming. Imagine a baby with colic. In a confined space. Not fun.
Fast forward 2.5 years later and we relived a similar incident with our youngest daughter late this spring. Our annual road trip to Florida took a turn south when Cupcake decided that she had had quite enough road time as we hit Houston – 3 hours from Austin. Now with each of our girls we have endured three hours of continuous wails, screams, pleading, and crying from our babies while on a road trip.
Will this stop us from road tripping with our daughters? Definitely not. And now that our family is complete, we’re hoping these early infant outbursts are miles behind us and we’ll have more pleasant memories filling our minds as our girls grow older and our scope of possible destinations expands.
What was your most memorable road trip?
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Enjoyed reading this post! We’re also road trips goers with dogs so I understand what a hassle that can be sometimes…but it’s also fun and it’s getting better as the kids are getting older!
You are better than me… three hours? God no!
I have family in Bethesda, Maryland – which is right next to Washington DC, so we made the 8 hour road trip quite a bit growing up. With my own kids, northern New Hampshire and New York City are about as far as we’ve driven with them. Each of those destinations are about 3 hours from home or so and that’s about all my kids will behave long enough for LOL.
I can’t wait to take Lil’ Man on his first Road trip- so far the longest the’s been in the car was 3 hours (a trip to LA), but he was still pretty small and slept the entire way.
We haven’t done the road trip thing yet. I am pretty nervous about it
We haven’t taken a road trip on a long time, but we are trying out the Kia Sorento and if I had to take a long trip, this would be a good car to do it in! I can’t believe you went alone with Cakes though, I can imagine that would be so hard! You are a real trooper, you do what you have to
I would not have made it for 3 hours. About 30 minutes tops and I would be looking for the nearest hotel.
I’m about to deliver my first–I can’t even imagine 3 hours of screaming. You are a great momma!
We went to Florida with the kids several years back and it was the BEST time. I actually LOVE road trips, just love them.
We just skip the road trips all together. Three hours cooped up with an unhappy little one? I would have to keep pulling over to jog laps around the car.
We love road trips! We did one with all three kids for a 8 hour drive. We stopped mid-way for a day, and drove thru the rest of the time. It was AWESOME! and calorie inducing!! =)
We need to take more road trips, but not just yet. My 20 month old can only handle about an hour in the car.
We just took one with the kids from Florida to Pennsylvania! Need a bigger car next time!
I think our most memorable road trip was when we drove from Wisconsin to NC when we moved–with 4 cats in the back seat! And the car was packed so tightly I think I had about 6 inches of space to move around. But I guess that still beats 3 hours of crying!
We drove to Disney World once, all the way from Houston with three young children. It was an experience for sure.
Cool. We’re no stranger to road trips either!
We haven’t gone on a super long road trip with the kids yet, but my parents drove to Florida from Michigan with them. I thought they were nuts, but the kids did great!