Let's just start by saying I do not recommend taking the drive from Philly to SLC with 5 kids in tow. Everyone was totally well behaved, the kids were WAY better than I expected, we had some good times....but it was still a four day road trip with 5 kids in tow. No bueno.
- - - - - - - -- - - - - - - - PREP - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
I was determined to pack healthy road trip snacks. We opted to NOT use a cooler, so everything had to be shelf stable. I packed a plastic bin (idea stolen from Emily Foley) with Whole Grain Goldfish crackers, No-Sugar-Added fruit cups and applesauce, No-Sugar-Added juice boxes, granola bars, dried fruit, fresh grapes, almonds, 100% juice fruit snacks, snack bags of multi grain Cheerios mixed 50/50 with fruity Cheerios, mini pretzel bags, and pop chips. Not ALL of it is healthy. We also packed a jumbo bag of red licorice and white cheddar popcorn.
I also purposely with-held certain movies from my kids in the months before we left. They never saw Mr. Peabody and Sherman or Hotel Transylvania and they only saw Monsters University, Muppets Most Wanted and a few other movies ONCE. Then we bought them (or Redboxed them) for this trip. This way they were pretty attentive to the films they were watching. It worked like a charm.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - MONDAY - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
We headed off around 9 am and started the long journey. It went surprisingly well. The kids were very content to play with the awesome road trip bins Matt's co-workers made for each of them. We held off on showing a DVD for a few hours and all was pretty peaceful for a while.
Poor Jude still has to face backwards in his car seat, which is super-boring, but safe. NOTE: This trip would have been WAY easier if we had made it during 1982 when kids were still allowed to lay on stacked blankets in the back of a station wagon with no seat belts on. Just saying.
I had purchased a Spirograph (which, by the way, is impossible to find in stores...go with Amazon.com if you want one) and it was a HUGE hit with the redheads. I swear, it was hours of silence.
We made it from West Chester, PA to Cleveland, OH that first day.
In Cleveland, we stayed the night in a truly grody Motel 6...ick. It took every shred of low-maintenance-Emilie I could muster to stay there.
Eerie and kind of creepy, right? Okay, maybe that's just the Instagram filter I chose. The kids didn't seem to mind.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - TUESDAY - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Cici hardly slept at all that night (she must have been creeped out by the Motel 6) and we awoke feeling exhausted and groggy. She passed out as we were prepping to leave, exhausted from a night of keeping Mom and Dad awake....that's hard work.
We grabbed some breakfast and headed out. I started out driving so Matt could recoup from the night of Cici Terror. I made it for a few hundred miles with episodes of "This American Life" as my co-pilot.
We ended up stopping every 3-4 hours through-out these days of driving. We let the kids stretch their legs, eat, buy postcards, and get souvenir pennies at every stop.
We made it through Indiana AND Illinois on Tuesday. You gotta love those narrow states when you road trip because you feel like you're really getting somewhere as you pass into each new state.
Evening fell and we looked for a place to stay again, this time driving a little later then we had the night before. Charlie & Lola (also new to the kids) kept the girls happy as we drove.
We ended up in Walcott, IA at the at the site of the Largest Truck Stop in the World!...how...exciting...?
We stayed in a MUCH nicer hotel and everyone was happy as we headed to bed.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -WEDNESDAY - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
We awoke in Iowa and had free breakfast at our hotel. Amazingly, these were pretty awesome waffles. Like, seriously good.
This was the day when Bianca started to lose it. There was punching, whining, crying and all manner of evil. Don't let the innocent face fool you.
We soldiered on, smiling as best as we could as we secretly died inside from the endless hours of driving, fighting from the backseat, numb bums and sleep deprivation.
We stopped for gas in some tiny town in Iowa whose gas station boasted the "Best Burgers in the State". It had great Yelp reviews so we decided to give it a go.
Yeah, I think those reviews were written by the owner's extended family or something. Not great food. Did we expect anything more from a Gas Station? Maybe. I think Guy Fieri has brainwashed us all into thinking this could have turned out well.
After lunch we got back in the car and soon we had reached the edge of my LDS Mission boundaries (Harlan, Iowa). It looked just like I remembered from way back in 1998-2000....lots of corn. The new windmills were a modern addition though.
We soon crossed the State line into Nebraska.
We had decided to stop in Omaha and see the Winter Quarters LDS Temple and Visitors Center. When I was on my mission there the church broke ground for the Temple and I have not been back since. It was lovely and I am SO glad we decided to take an hour and visit.
Inside the Visitors' Center the kids heard about the Mormon Pioneers, pushed a handcart, loaded a small toy wagon and we saw a quilt exhibit that I loved (the kids were less enthused).
The LDS WInter Quarters Temple was gorgeous, even just from the outside. I loved sharing this Holy place with our kids.
I was so grateful as we weathered this long trip together that, at the Temple, I got a gentle reminder that our family can be together forever. It was lovely to have that feeling of love and appreciation for these wonderful husband and kids I have been blessed with.
After the Temple we grabbed some lunch at a Nebraska tradition. RUNZA.
What's a Runza you ask? It's bread dough filled with cheese, cabbage and
ground meat and baked until golden and sinful. Oh man...these were SO
god. Okay, not as good as my homemade Runzas (I'll share the recipe here soon), but close.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - THURSDAY - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
We were finally getting a bit more sleep since I had stopped in Iowa and bought a swaddle-sleep-sack the night before for Cecilia. It worked like a charm. And, yes, I have 5 kids and I suck at swaddling.
Sweet Cecilia got the 70's baby treatment this trip. At each hotel we would pull a drawer out of the hotel room dresser, line it with foam padding (we brougght with us) and blabnkets and that was Cici's Insta-Crib.
This poor baby has been dragged across the country and fed by a Mommy leaning backwards over the front seat. It's a good thing she isn't old enough to feel shafted.
Since everyone had slept better the night before it was much better driving that day.
We were ready to tackle the longest stretch of our drive: Wyoming.
Not only is Wyoming the most boring State in the Union, but it also has the most boring shape, totally wasting my cool StateFrame app. Lame.
About a gazillion hours through Wyoming, Matt needed a rest room. We stopped at the very next exit: Buford, WY. When we pulled up the the lonely building at this exit I thought the sign was misprinted, but it turns out it wasn't. It turns out Buford, WY is the smallest town in the entire US...population = 01.
Are you wondering who the population of Buford, WY is? It's Jason.
And he's kind of dreamy, right? I guess the trade-off of being with Dreamy-Cowboy-Jason is you would have to live in Buford, WY (and then they would have to change the sign). he lives in a tiny house behind the Outpost/Store that this picture was taken in. We bought some cool, stone earrings for Evangeline and Matt bought a whistle carved from an antler. We had to support this guy financially, what else does he have keeping him going? He's the sole resident of the smallest town in the US. You gotta support that.
We got to Rock Springs and made a stop at Subway to get dinner. After so many burgers and fries I was SO excited to eat the wilty-shredded-lettuce on a Subway sandwich. Jude was thrilled to stretch his legs here.
We were looking in Rock Springs for a hotel and realized that we were actually just 3 hours from home. It was only 7:30pm. We decided to push through and the kids could sleep in the car.
It went well, until the kids actually fell asleep. Then, every 15 minutes or so, one of them would wake up and start crying and wake the others up and then everyone was sobbing and that's when I decided to stop on the side of the road and give up and die there. Eventually we crossed the state line in Utah (amidst sobbing).
We kept going and I just reminded myself that we had saved $100 by not getting a hotel and that I could go to prison if I killed my kids. At 10:30 pm we pulled into the driveway of Matt's parents' house. We had made it. We unloaded our sleeping kids and fell into bed.
The next morning we woke up and realized we had survived that trip. I honestly wasn't sure if we would. And we were ready to start the next phase of out move and settle in to our new home.
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