We returned from our 3rd big vacation in the past year on Saturday night. The trip was 8 days long, which included 4 days of travel and 4 days at Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.
The driving days were long, but very interesting, so I wanted to share a few tidbits about those days alone.
We traveled through Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina.
Here is what we saw and found interesting...
- Toll roads are expensive and annoying (as much as $4 we paid at some)
- Bob the Builder was played on the DVD player at
least 5 times through--and it's not a short movie.
- Charleston, WV is beautiful, and a place that both Peter and I thought looked like a great place to live.
- I hate when kids eat in the car--we never normally do, except on vacation, and even then it's dry cereal only. Yuck!
- In North Carolina, along the roads we traveled, there are groups of extremely run down mobile homes (from around 1960-1970) where people live. It was actually very sad.
- In South Carolina, there are tons of billboards for canned collard greens, vidalia onions, and other assorted southern canned foods.
- Illinois was our least favorite state by far. I can't stand Chicago traffic or the speedy and unsafe drivers.
- Nexus 7 tablets saved the day many times, especially with the ability to charge them while driving.
- Marshall still loves to page through little books to pass the time.
- We spotted every license plate except Alaska, Hawaii, Montana, Delaware, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Idaho, Vermont, and New Hampshire.
- Palm trees are my favorite by far
- I LOVE being a time share owner and can't wait until we decide to upgrade a little more.
- We love doing road trips and we're going again in 4 months.
- Peter and I agree that it would be ideal to live within a days drive to the ocean (ideally south, but anywhere really).
- Different fast food places and grocery stores, including: Bojangles chicken and biscuits, Waffle House, Red Burrito, Chick Fil-A, Food Lion, Piggly Wiggly, Publix...
- The Smokey Mountains--they were the best in the fall through Tennessee, but pretty great last week as well, in Virginia and West Virginia.
- Amish people that we came across in MN, VA, and WV.
Our longest days of travel were from Farmington, MN to Gallipolis, OH and back. This route was 846 miles and 13 hours (this did not include the hour lost on the first day or gained on the last day). We left home at 5:30AM on Saturday and arrived in Gallipolis around 9PM EST. On the way home, we left Gallipolis at 5:30 AM EST and arrived home at 8PM-- we stopped only 4 times on the way home, for gas/food/potty.
Playing in the sand
