Road Trippin' Part 2 of 3

Other than the normal pitstops for gas and for feeding Finn, we did pretty good our first day on the road. We listened to music on the radio together... the girls loved when a song they knew came on, and we would do some fun dancing in our seats. We told silly stories, and made up songs. Charlotte read some books to Marley, and then to herself while Marley played with her doll. The girls lasted a full 5 hours before I needed to whip out the iPad. 

Rule #2- You'll get there, when you'll get there. Listen to your children... watch for signs they're giving, that are indicators that they're getting antsy in their seats. We stopped at a playground along the way, to let the kids run around a bit, and because Finn needed to stretch out. It was about a 45 minute pitstop... In my mind though, we weren't trying to make it anywhere by a certain time... and that helped listen to my children, rather than my own expectations. Doing this, I was able to tell when they had enough in the park, and were ready to get back on the road (rather than giving them a time limit). Could my kids have spent the rest of the day at the park... YES. But, I could tell when they were ready to sit down again. It was about that the same time, when they needed a snack. I told them they could grab a snack in the truck, and that shuffled them back to their seats without a whine.

It was at our lunch stop, where I decided to book a hotel. I was getting the vibes from the kids that we could make it a few more hours before stopping for the night... so I booked a place that was just about 8 hours into the trip. That way we'd have to drive only 2.5-3 hours the next day. Best advice someone gave me, was to drive the furthest you could drive the first day... because it's tougher to get kids in their seats on the second day.

We stopped again about 1 hour later, to meet up with sweet friends that we had made in Korea. They're now living in New Mexico... and it just so happened, that they were RIGHT along our way... so it was a no brainer to meet up with them. I'm SO grateful that they took some time out in their day to see us. We met them in a park, and the kids got to feed the geese, and play... win win. There's really nothing like catching up with friends... especially when our families have both been growing/expanding... We could have spent days with them catching up... but alas, we needed to get a little further, to make it to our hotel for the night.

Getting back in the truck after this stop was tougher... the kids were sad to say "bye" to friends, hangry, and tired... so we stopped for a quick bite to eat (drive thru) and pressed onto our hotel, in Roswell, NM. When looking at places to stop... there were a few places where we could have rested a little closer... but I picked this spot, because we had driven through this funky town 11 years ago... and laughed over it's quirkiness. It was so funny telling Charlotte we were going to spend the night with the aliens. She looked at me and said, "Wait, what? We're going to see green people?!?" ... It was the perfect spot to spend the night, because we could wake up and walk around a little bit before getting on the road for our last leg of the trip. Somehow, it's like my inner coffee heart just knew which hotel to pick, because when we pulled up, it just so happened that a Starbucks was right across the street...

Stay tuned for Part 3...