Part 2-car trips

1) Snacks and food: I'll admit that occassionally we stop somewhere to eat, but for the most part I try to avoid this. I pack food for ourselves because it's cheaper and healthier. Fesh food and veggies don't have the negative behavior impacts that processed foods do, and prevent things like swelling from sitting for long periods of time.
2) TV: I rarely use it, unless it's a greater than 6 hour trip. Video games: absolutely not. The kids don't need to spend hours rotting their brains, and they have plenty of toys and such (and their imaginations)  to keep them entertained. The added bonus is that when I do finally turn it on, it's such a novelty that it actually keeps them interested.
3) I envy those whose kids sleep in the car. Mine never have, so, we only travel during the day. Since we enjoy stopping and seeing, it's not a big deal though.
4) We stop and explore. I find a 1 hour stop at a small museum or grocery store can do wonders for the kids. We don't stop frequently, but we make our stops count.
5) If we don't stay with families, we stay at suite hotels (preferably with a door between the living and sleeping areas). After a long day in the car, we all need room to spread out and separate ourselves. If we have a suite, we can talk, watch TV, or whatever without waking the kids or keeping them up.
6) Don't over pack, and limit the number of bags. The more things I have to keep track of, the more stress I have.

Taking the road less traveled.

After saying goodbye to some very dear friends today, we left NY for my moms house in New Hampshire. The faster option to get from one place to the other was to use the NY Thruway and the Mass Turnpike. Being very familiar with this route I was none to thrilled with the idea. It may be faster, but I wanted to relax and clear my head. So, we headed north a little bit towards Glenns Falls, NY then east on US 4 (ok technically it's marked as north on the signs, but it really does head east.) to I89 south to New Hampshire. This was a great decision. Instead of just flying by things on the main highway, we got to explore and take time to see the area.

First stop was a spring in Saratoga Springs to show the kids part of the history of the town.

The kids thought it was neat seeing the water bubble up from the ground. Much to my surprise they didn't try to stick their hands in and splash around.

On our way east we saw this sign:

which led to an unanticipated stop to figure out why. The visitor center provided some information, but we wandered around the park to find more. We ended up needing to do more research online later to figure it out, but we found a few other things to explore too! There was a canal lock for the Champlain canal and the remnants of a ship that they raised in 1958. Top it off with beautiful weather, and it was a great stop.

During the next part of the drive we allowed our little girl to sit in the front seat of the car to see the snow still on the tops of mountains with the windows down. I think this picture sums up her experience with that:

She loved it. Cracked me up to watch her. 

Our last stop came after driving over this:

It's the Quechee Gorge in VT. We stopped and walked over it. An absolutely beautiful surprise, and a great way to get the wiggles out of the kids.

Now we get to spend the next few days with my mommy. Have fun everyone!