Best Road Trip Ever! Traveling with Kids | An Intro to National Parks
In my last post, I wrote about changing perspective, and how looking at your life differently, or using a different lens helps in seeing your circumstances in a whole new way. But I also suggested that a change of scenery might do the trick as well. [wink, wink] Yup, after two years of 'strongly suggesting' to my hubby that we need to get out and about and experience other places, we packed up the fam and headed out on a road trip! Woot! Woot! Finally.
The Plan
The plan was to head west. We have some family sprinkled throughout a few interesting states, so we thought we'd stop in and say hello. We also made it our goal on this road trip to hit as many state parks / national monuments as possible. Well, we only had 10 days, so we planned hard, rode hard, and played hard. Thanks to a couple of friends who mentioned this great reference book on national parks, and this passport book which the kids enjoyed keeping for a momento, finding the best stops was fairly easy.
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Making it Educational
Let me start by sharing a little bit of our preparation and route. I wanted to make this road trip as educational as possible for the kiddos, so I put together little binders (I got mine at Target, but you can find them most anywhere) with coloring pages of each state we were going through. Crayola has these wonderful printouts that I found on Pinterest. They include the state capital, state bird, state flower, etc. I put those in order of which ones we'd be driving through first, with a map of the USA in front, marked with our route. And it wouldn't be complete without some coloring utensils. Each had their own erasable colored pencils, in a little pouch, inside their binder, because, come-on, the fewer issues to fight over the better, right?!So, we started this road trip in Minnesota, and by the end of the trip we had traveled through and/or explored Iowa, Nebraska, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Wyoming, & South Dakota. I'm gonna break this trip down for ya, and just start with the first two days of travel for this post, which were Iowa & Nebraska. The kiddos were so excited that they thought getting treats at gas stations, playing tag/racing/ jumping jacks & lunges at truck stops, and eating at fast-food restaurants was "the best road trip ever." My poor sheltered children. Here's a look!
In case you're interested, we stayed in a sweet little town in Iowa called Atlantic. They call themselves the Coca-Cola Capital of Iowa, celebrating annual Coca-Cola days, which is the second largest mini-convention of Coca-Cola collectors in the United States. Just a neat little tidbit of information. We stayed our first night at the America's Best Value Inn and were treated with wonderful customer service. Even though we got in late, they allowed us to swim in their pool a bit passed pool hours because our kids were so looking forward to it. Those are things that can make or break the day, am I right mama's?!
I'm gonna let ya in on a little secret though. My kiddos haven't (or at least they don't remember) ever leaving the Minnesota/Wisconsin area, so they were stoked for this trip, and quite easy to please. But in all fairness (and honesty to myself), I never called this a vacation, because, well, let's be real - 10 days, 9 states, in close proximity to the entire family is no vacay. But an adventure it was!!! And one with lasting memories.
These were the adventures before the adventure. Let me know if you have any questions, otherwise, stay tuned for the next part. I'll be taking you to the Great Sand Dunes National Park!