Finally got through all of those July posts! I couldn't wait to get to this segment. We were invited to Broghan's dad's cousin's daughter wedding..did you follow that? :) Anyways, it's basically Broghan's second cousin's daughter and the wedding was taking place in Charlotte, NC. We had gone back and forth for a LONG time deciding on 1) if we should go or not and 2) if we should fly vs. drive. With two little ones, flying usually makes more sense; however, Keller is now almost 3 and that means he needs his own ticket...we did the cost comparisons and that alone made more sense. Then there is the plus of having control over when/where to stop and the time schedule we followed. So driving it was.
The next decision...do we just go for the weekend or make a huge trip out of it? We knew people in Indianapolis, IN (half way-ish) and many people in Charlotte...then there was the fact that Broghan's parents were heading straight to their condo in MO the day after the wedding...add into it the ocean and smokey mountains and we were sold...a 12 day road trip was what we were going to do! Crazy I know. But the timing couldn't have worked out any better. My 8 week class ended the Thursday before we left (on Wed. Aug 1) and that gave us just under a week to prepare ourselves with food, clothes, entertainment, camping gear, and emotional energy to tackle this trip. We were traveling with two adults, an almost 3 year, a 15 month old and a 5 yr old chocolate lab! Yikes! In the planning stages we learned we'd be spending over 40+ hours in the car not including any driving we did while at our destinations. Since we knew we'd have to deal with the kids being in the car that long, plus we wanted to make the most out of our days, we decided to do most of the driving in the night hours...switching who drove while the other slept, but lets be honest, Broghan did most of the driving.
I'll make a few separate posts of the things we did and that I got pictures of, but here is the overall idea of when and where we went.
8/1 - 8:30PM - left EC, WI for Indianapolis.
8/2 - 4 AM - made it! Slept in the car though for a few hours so as to not wake our friends.
8/2 - day - spent at the Bonikowski household...then treated to an afternoon at the Indianapolis Children's 8/2 - 5 PM - Left Indianapolis and headed towards NC
8/2 - Evening - decided to skip caves we had originally planned and set our destination as the ocean in southern NC!
8/3 - 7 AM - arrived at the ocean! K-man woke up just before we got there and Lucy we had to wake up when we parked! Great night of driving..
8/3 - 12 NOON - Left Ocean for Charlotte.
8/3 - 2:30 PM - Arrived at hotel in Charlotte, enjoyed that evening at a BBQ hosted by the Farley side.
8/4 - all day - saw friends, attending a great wedding, spent time with family!
8/5 - 12 NOON - left NC for the Smokey Mountains!
8/5 - 3 PM to 8PM - spent time in the Mtns - it rained! Got some great videos though and saw Elk and waterfalls.
8/6 - 5AM - Arrived in Osage Beach, MO at the Reilly's condo.
8/6, 8/7, 8/8 - Spent these three days enjoying some down time and time on the water and in the sun in MO. Great break from all of the driving! We got in some barefooting (Broghan) and some shopping (Janet & I).
8/8 - 8 PM - Left Osage for MN
8/9 - 5 AM - Arrived at my parents house in Minnesota.
8/9 - all day - Spent time sleeping and re-packing (Broghan) and playing outside. Dropped Broghan off at the airport at 6PM for his trip to Denver for a friend's Bachelor party weekend. The only other excited for this day was that Keller got stung by a bee! :( First bee sting in the family for the kiddos...thankfully no reaction and he didn't even know it happened 15 minutes later.
8/10 - all day - Como Zoo day!
8/11 - evening - Went to the Carver County Fair with just Keller, Lucy was being anti-car and stayed back with grandma and grandpa..which was fine...not much to do at a fair for a 1 yr old!
8/12 - 5PM - headed out to pick up Broghan from the airport and finally head home. Made it back to our house at 8:30PM that night. Meaning we were gone for almost exactly 11 days. We survived!!
Pictures from our driving on the first few days...
Keller getting ready with his goggles..
here we go! Blankets, waters, animals, books, snacks...we're good to go!
The view past Lexington, KY.
Random park stop just outside...somewhere...I think Knoxville...lol. Ended up having a great dog park though!
First dinner on the road! yum yum yum!
Until Next Time...
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