Summer Road Trip 2017
We left for our first all family road trip vacation. The last road trip Scott and I took was to move his brother out to California, and the time before that was the Disney World road trip vacation with just the girls. This one included Mr. Henry. I was excited and nervous to be stuck in the car with them all but I think we have hit the age where it would be fine. I planned activities for them to play and movies were packed in the car and we even did the mobile DVD players for Henry to watch his "baby" movies as the girls call them. We had a bin packed with road trip snacks and a cooler full of light meals I can give along the way to cut down the eating out cost and the fact we might not find a GF place to eat.
This trip was out to Washington. We planned to see Seattle, and then camp at Mount Olympic National Park, and to See Hoh Rain Forest. So we loaded up the van, cargo carrier, and brought the bikes. We were set! We left Minnesota at 5 am and drove through our state and went into North Dakota next. Let me tell you that part of the driving was exhausting with the wind that was pulling sideway across the highway. I was so glad to make it through this state and into Montana. I have to admit this state is not my favorite to look at while driving 8 some hours across it. I like trees and there is not to man of them. But the kids enjoyed finding the letters up on the hills of each town. You have to make a game out of stuff sometimes to get through.
We stopped for the first day of driving in Billings MT. My plan was to find a hotel 4 hours or so before we wanted to stop driving and lucky us we have Tmobile and they have no service through the entire state of Montana. So we had to do the drive around the hotels to find one that has openings and price we willing to stay. After 5 hotels later we ended up at the Howard Johnson hotel. (Side note when we went to Florida with the girls we drove way to late and we ended up not being able to find hotels and the ones we did were not our favorite to stay the least and the girls still talk about it) So this time they were so curious about the hotels we were staying in. This one had a pool and water slide and the rooms were decent. The hotel room smelled like maple syrup so I plugged my essential oil diffuser in the room to get rid of germs and the smell. Yes I totally traveled with my essential oils and my diffuser because you need to arm yourself with what ever might come up! So after we settled in our room we went to the pool for a little bit. Kate who was so excited to go down the water slide didn't wait and ended up freaking out in the pool because she landed in deeper water then she could handle. Bella the future life guard jumped in the pool and swam to her and got her to the side of the pool. They ended up reenacting this scenario at every pool! We didn't stay late because we knew we were going to get up at 4 again to drive all day.
Day 2
We got up and loaded back in the van and I had cereal with and cups for them to eat out of them for breakfast. They thought that was a fun new way of eating cereal. The kids continued to do amazing they didn't beg for treats at the gas stations when we stopped for bathroom breaks and to fill the van. We did a few rest stops to get out and move around. This one had a big hill that looked like no one has made it fully up. Henry insisted we climb it, so we did. It was very comical watching all of us climb this thing I'm sure. There was a road on the top of the hill that we started to walked down thinking it would take us back to the parking lot but it did not. We ended up getting on our butts and scooting down the super incline hill to the bottom. We all had dirty dusty butts! But it was fun!We ended up seeing a deer crossing the road on the top of the hill we climbed it was cool to be so close to it. We found some rocks that we wanted to bring back and walking stick that Scott wanted. There were so many gophers popping up all around this place. They seemed friendly due the amount of food people were feeding them. Many movies later and the game of license plates continued we made it through Montana and into Idaho. Since we were just driving through the little stick part at the top of the state it didn't take us long to go through.
This time for our hotel stay I was able to get some service and I booked our hotel through Priceline. Name your price section was handy. I found after using it many times for this trip it best to book around 2-3, its after check out and before the time when people get desperate to find a place. We booked our hotel in Bellevue Washington at silver cloud hotel. It was just outside Seattle and the prices were a lot cheaper. I think This might be our favorite hotel stay we had. The room was cozy and the staff was sweet. They didn't have a pool at this location but that was okay. We walked down the street for dinner and came back and lounged around the room before it was bed time. We were able to sleep in compared to the days prior.
Tomorrow we went to Seattle for the day... Come back to see how that day looked like!
We stopped for the first day of driving in Billings MT. My plan was to find a hotel 4 hours or so before we wanted to stop driving and lucky us we have Tmobile and they have no service through the entire state of Montana. So we had to do the drive around the hotels to find one that has openings and price we willing to stay. After 5 hotels later we ended up at the Howard Johnson hotel. (Side note when we went to Florida with the girls we drove way to late and we ended up not being able to find hotels and the ones we did were not our favorite to stay the least and the girls still talk about it) So this time they were so curious about the hotels we were staying in. This one had a pool and water slide and the rooms were decent. The hotel room smelled like maple syrup so I plugged my essential oil diffuser in the room to get rid of germs and the smell. Yes I totally traveled with my essential oils and my diffuser because you need to arm yourself with what ever might come up! So after we settled in our room we went to the pool for a little bit. Kate who was so excited to go down the water slide didn't wait and ended up freaking out in the pool because she landed in deeper water then she could handle. Bella the future life guard jumped in the pool and swam to her and got her to the side of the pool. They ended up reenacting this scenario at every pool! We didn't stay late because we knew we were going to get up at 4 again to drive all day.
Day 2
We got up and loaded back in the van and I had cereal with and cups for them to eat out of them for breakfast. They thought that was a fun new way of eating cereal. The kids continued to do amazing they didn't beg for treats at the gas stations when we stopped for bathroom breaks and to fill the van. We did a few rest stops to get out and move around. This one had a big hill that looked like no one has made it fully up. Henry insisted we climb it, so we did. It was very comical watching all of us climb this thing I'm sure. There was a road on the top of the hill that we started to walked down thinking it would take us back to the parking lot but it did not. We ended up getting on our butts and scooting down the super incline hill to the bottom. We all had dirty dusty butts! But it was fun!We ended up seeing a deer crossing the road on the top of the hill we climbed it was cool to be so close to it. We found some rocks that we wanted to bring back and walking stick that Scott wanted. There were so many gophers popping up all around this place. They seemed friendly due the amount of food people were feeding them. Many movies later and the game of license plates continued we made it through Montana and into Idaho. Since we were just driving through the little stick part at the top of the state it didn't take us long to go through.
This time for our hotel stay I was able to get some service and I booked our hotel through Priceline. Name your price section was handy. I found after using it many times for this trip it best to book around 2-3, its after check out and before the time when people get desperate to find a place. We booked our hotel in Bellevue Washington at silver cloud hotel. It was just outside Seattle and the prices were a lot cheaper. I think This might be our favorite hotel stay we had. The room was cozy and the staff was sweet. They didn't have a pool at this location but that was okay. We walked down the street for dinner and came back and lounged around the room before it was bed time. We were able to sleep in compared to the days prior.
Tomorrow we went to Seattle for the day... Come back to see how that day looked like!
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