Day 16 - Drive Home and Recap

Hard to believe that Saturday was our 16th day out on the road. We had a long drive ahead of us, but we were all excited to get back home. The drive home was 582 miles, which was the most we had in one day on the trip. To try and make things easier on the girls we woke up at 3am so we could be on the road by 4am. We actually made it all the way past Indianapolis before we stopped to take a break. Allyson had found another great playground for us so we stopped there and let everyone out to move around.

The stop was very much needed, but after this point the rest of the drive seemed to crawl along. We were in a ton of traffic (for no reason) all the way into Ohio and near Dayton. We never did over 50mph for nearly 45 minutes, which just added more and more time. Driving through downtown Columbus was fun though because when we were on I-670 we drove right past two places Allyson and I lived when we were in Columbus, so I got to point those out to the girls. We were trying to make it to the outlet mall in Sunbury for our next stop. We actually did make it there, but that would prove to be a bad choice. We started getting off the highway, and then got stuck in a long line of cars. When this happens in the motorhome you really are stuck. It's almost impossible to pull out of the line and get back going on the highway at the right speed to avoid an accident. We pieced together that the crazy line was for two reasons: 1) it was a tax-free weekend for back-to-school shopping, so the outlet mall was packed, and 2) there is major construction at the Sunbury exit on I-71. We were never even able to go to the outlet mall because there was no parking. So we pulled over at a gas station and took a break before waiting in a long line of cars to get back on the highway.

During this stop I learned that while driving one of the bunk bed doors had broken off in the motorhome. That was super frustrating to see, but we don't think it had anything to do with kids breaking it or anything like that. It's just an odd design where one door panel supports another, and it just broke. So now I have a woodworking project this week.

We finally made it back to our house in Westlake at about 5pm. We lost an hour in the time change, so that worked out to 12 hours in the motorhome. The kids were actually amazing on the last leg of this trip, because it wasn't easy. We were all very happy to be back and we all ran around the house to enjoy the ability to get out of each other's faces!

To recap, we:

• Drove a total 4,182 miles. 3,743 in the motorhome and 439 in rental cars

• Traveled through 12 states

• Slept in 7 states

• Visited 4 national parks

  • Badlands

  • Rocky Mountain

  • Great Sand Dunes

  • Gateway Arch

• Visited 2 national monuments/landmarks

  • Mount Rushmore

  • Pike's Peak

• Hit 35 "waypoints" on our trip. You can check out all of our stops here: Rocky Mountain Road Trip

• Added 7 new states/stickers to our map of places we've camped.

Now that we've had some time to look back on the trip, I don't think we could have expected things to go better. I was very excited for the trip and had high hopes we'd make some great memories. We definitely did that, and I think all of our expectations were exceeded. Allyson and I were both very surprised at how well everyone did with all the traveling and driving. There were some complaints and whining, but it general the girls and Nolan were awesome. We went back and forth on whether or not we could do a trip like this with some of the kids being so young, but they were amazing. It really opens the door for other trips in the future.

My last collection of random thoughts and notes I didn't capture in earlier posts:

• I intentionally left out of earlier posts the extent to which we had to battle illness on this trip. Our daughter Julia regularly develops this asthmatic cough that will keep her and at least one of us up all night (all night!). She had this a few days before we left, and it went away so we thought we were in the clear, but it started again on the first night of our trip. So those early days of long drives to get out west were accomplished with Allyson and I on very limited sleep. Eventually Julia got past the cough and we moved on. However, Nolan and then Caroline would both get sick as well on the trip although neither of them experienced anything serious.

• Allyson pushed to have us clean the house before we left, which I bemoaned....greatly. However, walking into a clean home was amazing, so I appreciate her driving us to do that.

• The only shoes Natalie brought with her were a pair of Van's high-tops🤦‍♂️. While these are cool shoes, they are a massive pain in the ass especially since Natalie isn't good at tying her shoes. Next time Allyson or I will doublecheck shoe selections.

• This was the first vacation where Allyson and I actually ate well. Vacations are always a difficult time to eat well, and that goes double when we're in the motorhome. You basically always have a variety of snack food at arms-reach, and it becomes impossible to not fill up on kids snacks. But not this time!

• I estimate we drove anywhere from 300-400 miles in construction. I know it's construction season, but this was ridiculous. And I kid you not, after all that driving through construction the only place I saw actual construction work happening was in Indiana on our last day, and that was a Saturday. Everywhere else we were in reduced lanes with no one working on anything. I know that is a cheap, cliche complaint, but I had to make it. It was absurd.

• Taking a trip like this with kids, where you have no time for reading the news, is like traveling in a time warp. During this trip the Olympics started, the MLB trade deadline came and went, and Joe Biden dropped out of the election race. We were barely catching wind of these things and could barely keep track of what day it was.

• On 8 separate occasions we got up early (usually 5am) to start driving while the kids slept. This is a big undertaking because we have to do all the following:

  • Feed a baby

  • Pack up the pack-n-play

  • Move kids to the back bed

  • Fold up the sofa bed

  • Install 2 car seats

  • Raise the overhead bunk bed

  • Put away anything that could move around

  • Disconnect utilities

That's all after putting away everything outside the night before. It's a big ordeal but we really benefitted from doing this. The kids slept for 2-3 hours of each of those drives, so from their perspective a 5 hour drive in the motorhome was only 2-3 hours. In particular it made things much more tolerable for Nolan, which made everyone else's experience better. It also gave Allyson and I a couple hours to ourselves to talk and take in scenery

• Our National Parks truly are a treasure for this country. Each one we went to was beautiful. Of all the things our government does that make you scratch your head, they really did the parks system right. What a gift!

The last note I will make is that buying our motorhome was probably the best family investment we have made. Even before this trip we've had so many great memories in ol' Sweet Sassy Molassy. The girls love her and get excited every time she's in the driveway because it means we're about to go do something fun.

We are all very excited for our next trip. Thanks for following along!