On Sunday we left Delaware and headed back towards home through Pennsylvania. We had one more stop on the trip and that was Gettysburg. We planned to go to the battlefield and visitor center with the motorhome and then stay overnight at the Gettysburg Campground nearby. It was only a 3.5 hour drive to Gettysburg. The route took us across Chesapeake Bay (via the other major bridge) and around Annapolis and Baltimore. In hindsight I should have taken a route to go through downt

Saturday was our last full day in Delaware and we were changing things up. No beach on this day. Instead we were going to head down into Maryland and hopefully see some wild horses on Assateague Island. Getting down to the island would require a 40 minute car ride. You should’ve seen the looks on our spoiled kids faces. 40 minutes!?!? These kids don’t know the pain we do. The long car rides, stuffed into a vehicle with little or no A/C. No electronics, no music on demand. The

Thursday was our first full day in Delaware. The main attraction in this (southern) part of the state is the beaches, so the plan was to spend the day at one along the ocean. But first, we took time to enjoy the campsite, and to put on our latest state sticker. Delaware makes 32 states we've spent the night in with our motorhome! Pretty wild. We drove up route 1 to Bethany Beach. This was a popular beach that was supposed to also have a nice board walk. The town in general wa

On Wednesday we were heading to Delaware, but we had several things to see along the way. First, we stopped at Emily’s Donuts, which was suggested to us by Allyson’s friend. The donuts were very good. We had a couple options on what to do next. One was to go to the Mariners Museum, and the other was Yorktown. We likely didn’t have time for both, so we were planning on letting the kids decide. However, it was raining during our drive through Virginia and part of the Yorktown s

Tuesday morning started out much better than Monday. Everyone mostly slept through the night. We had leftover breakfast food from the previous day so I didn’t even have to cook. We got up and bummed around for a little bit while we sorted out plans for the day. We considered going to Jamestown, however that would have been a significant bus ride. While my confidence in navigating the bus system had grown after a day I was worried that the kids would get restless just on the b

Monday did not start out as we had envisioned it. Overnight, around 12:30am Nolan woke up crying. When I checked on him I saw he had thrown up in his bed. Typically, someone throwing up isn’t a huge deal, however we (particularly Allyson) are sensitive to anyone throwing up on vacation. This is because several years ago we were in Northern Michigan and everyone except Allyson ended up throwing up on our trip. Sam was just a baby so her throwing up on that trip became a major

This summer our vacation was centered around staying in one tiny state: Delaware. Delaware and Illinois are the only states east of the Mississippi that we have not spent the night in. We assume that we will stay in Illinois at some point on a future trip out west, so we need to hit Delaware. A few years ago I never would have thought about going to Delaware. I’ve never even met anyone from Delaware. But after doing some research, and actually taking time to look at it on the

On our last day we wanted to check out Castillo de San Marcos in downtown St. Augustine. It is a very old fort that was built over 350 years ago. It is right on the water and was used to defend against sieges by sea. The fort changed hands between countries several times. Reading about its history and seeing it from the outside was neat. I found it hard to fathom that twice the fort was "besieged" and taken over. The idea that of a group of people traveling across the entire

Thursday was Thanksgiving, and along with the holiday came a decent drop in temperature. The temperature would only get to about 65-70 degrees. Great weather, especially relative to what is was like back in Cleveland, however we definitely would not be getting in the water. We decided to check out the St. Augustine Alligator Park, which was an attraction that had some really good reviews online. I must admit that I was quietly not very enthusiastic about going here. I don't h

On Wednesday we knew we all wanted to hit the beach. It was 80 degrees out and the beach was literally about 100 yards from our camper. There was still a lot of stuff we wanted to see in St Augustine so we decided we would check out some more stuff in the morning and then spend the afternoon at the beach. We drove back through downtown and made our way over to the Ponce de Leon Fountain of Youth. Supposedly when Ponce de Leon ended up in Florida he was on a search for the Fou

I learned a lot of things on this trip. On all of our trips I assume I'll learn things each day. Between seeing new places and going to museums and historical sites there is always a lot to take in. But on this trip I felt like I learned things I really should have known before. On our way down to Florida Allyson told me that St. Augustine was the oldest city in the United States. I think my response was "that can't be right". Well, it turns out it was. The Spanish, led by Po

On the Sunday before Thanksgiving Allyson and I got a babysitter so we could relax together and go over Christmas plans. The next day we were leaving to take a family trip to the Smokey Mountains in Tennessee for Thanksgiving. We stopped for coffee and I pointed out that the weather forecast didn't look so great for our trip. It was supposed to rain for at least one full day, and then it was going to be in the 40's for a couple more. Not great weather for getting out in the N

Sunday was our last day and it really was just the drive home from New Jersey. We had stayed the night before right on the NJ/PA border...

Our last day of camping was a stay in New Jersey. To get there, one of the proposed options from Google Maps was to cut across New York...

Friday was another short drive day as we were heading just West to Connecticut. Not only were we just going next door, but we were only...

Thursday morning we were able to sleep in a little bit since we had a very short drive to Rhode Island. We got up and ate and then took...

On Wednesday we were heading off to Cape Cod, so we didn’t feel the need to rush in the morning. We made some breakfast and then packed...

We got up early on Tuesday to head to Massachusetts. We had to drive up through Bangor and drop off the rental car. Then we were heading...

On Monday we had another whole day in Bar Harbor. Fortunately, Nolan was not up at the crack of dawn. So although everyone did get up a...

Nolan treated us by getting up at 5:45 on Sunday. After initially trying to contain him in the back room of the motorhome I eventually...