Days 1-2: Heading Down to Alabama

For our first trip of 2025 we decided to head down to the Gulf Coast during Spring Break. Westlake's schools still follow the traditional Spring Break schedule where the break begins on Good Friday and then they have the whole next week off. When Easter is late in the year, as it was this year, it works out great for vacations because you don't have to go as far south to get to warm weather. For us, this opened up more possibilities for taking Sweet Sassy Molassy on vacation.

We chose the Gulf Coast because we could get to beaches if we wanted to, we could stop in multiple new states, and we likely wouldn't hit any major crowds. Although after planning the trip in the winter, I would learn that most school systems already had their breaks and we really wouldn't deal with any crowds. The overall plan day-by-day was as follows:

1. Drive down to Southern Ohio the first evening

2. Drive to Northern Alabama

3. Drive to Gulfport, MS

4. Gulfport, MS

5. Gulfport, MS

6. Drive to Ponchatoula, LA

7. Ponchatoula, LA

8. Drive home

9. Drive home

   
   

Our first day was Wednesday and we left shortly after the girls got home from school. The plan was to drive down to just north of Cincinnati and park overnight at a Cracker Barrel, then get back on the road the next morning. This would allow us to knock out a few hours of driving and shorten the amount of driving on the next day. So this should have been a simple part of the trip, but it didn't go to smoothly. First, we hit a traffic jam on I-480, less than five minutes from our house! After 20-30 minutes of waiting we passed the scene of the accident which of course appeared to be nothing. Then we headed down I-71, stopped at McDonalds for dinner, and then drove on down towards Cincinnati. The rest of the drive wasn't bad, but it did feel slow. There is yet again a massive construction project taking place on the I-70/I-71 interchange in downtown Columbus, so that didn't help the pace.

Once we got to the Cracker barrel it was already about 10pm. We set up the motorhome for sleeping and then put Nolan down. In my naive dad brain I assumed Nolan would sleep peacefully just like he did on our vacation last summer. HA! That didn't happen at all. Nolan is bigger, and older, and much more aware of his surroundings. So, he was not happy about being put down to sleep in his pack n' play. He screamed and whined for quite a while before we had to get him out and come up with another plan for bed before everyone lost their minds. Not only did we all have to deal with Nolan's fussing, but I got to deal with a heavy dose of "I told ya so's". For a couple weeks leading up to vacation Allyson kept saying she was very anxious about Nolan on the trip. I routinely responded to this concern by telling her she was worrying too much and that he would be fine. Well it only took 6 hours of our trip to realize how right she was. Thankfully Allyson saved the first evening by laying with Nolan and getting him to fall asleep in the parents bed before transferring him to his pack n' play. That is what she did every night with him and if she wasn't able to do that we likely would have cut the trip short. After this first night Nolan really was pretty good on this trip.

The next morning we got up at 5am, packed up, got everyone into sleeping spots and then hit the road by 6am. Our next stop was a campground in Decatur, Alabama which was 7 hours away. The first stop we made was at our beloved Buc-cees, in Smiths Grove, Kentucky, which was about 4 hours away. We got gas, loaded up on snacks, and let Nolan walk around and take in the magic of Buc-cees, since he was less than a year old when we went back in July.

The plan after the stop at Buc-cees was to drive straight to our next campground in Decatur, AL. Once we got moving Allyson noted how good everyone was being in the car and suggested that we could try and drive further into Alabama and leave ourselves with a shorter drive down to the coast on Friday. I agreed so we changed plans and decided that we would stop for a second time after a few hours and take a break before driving on down to a campground in Cottondale, AL which is not far from Tuscaloosa. Now we didn't have to put much thought into where to take our next break, because there happened to be a perfect pit stop in northern Alabama....another Buc-cees. We stopped again and let Nolan strut his stuff a bit before making the last leg of the trip.

The campground we stayed at was one Allyson found mid-trip. This really isn't an easy thing to do. Normally when we pick campgrounds we are using a computer and looking at their website, Google reviews, and Tripadvisor. But Allyson only had her phone and somewhat spotty cell service. So we ended up at the Sunset RV park. My first impression when pulling in was that this would be the place where we all die! I mean, the first few looks at this place were rough!

When I walked up to the office there was a sign that said to just go to your spot, but I didn't know which spot that was. Eventually a woman came out and said "Can I help you?" in a tone akin to "What the hell do you want?". We eventually got to our spot, which itself wasn't too bad. We were able to play outside for a few hours in what was actually beautiful weather.

I think what made the place so sketchy was that the majority of the tenants were clearly living there full time....at a campground.....in rural Alabama. But it met our needs and as an added bonus it was not far from the University of Alabama.

On any trip Allyson and I take we try and check out any big universities in the area, mainly just out of curiosity. But now that the kids are getting a little older we want to show them colleges to plant the idea of "hey I would like to go to a place like this one day". So I definitely wanted to drive through Alabama. The only bad thing about driving through this campus was that it was very early in the morning and all the kids were asleep. This had to be - by far- the most beautiful campus I have seen. It was amazing. We didn't want to wake anyone up so we didn't stop to get out for better quality pictures. We were both quite shocked by how nice it was, and again Allyson and I have seen a number of colleges.

After checking out the college we drove down through the rest of Alabama, into Mississippi, and on down to Gulfport which is where our campground was. We pulled in around 11am and got set up in our spot. All in all, it wasn't too bad getting down to the coast. Splitting the drive over three days made the trip take a bit longer, but it did make it easier on all the kids.

My miscellaneous thoughts and notes from the first couple days:

• It was really hard to wrap my head around the fact that I-70/I-71 is under construction again in downtown Columbus. From the looks of it that has been going on for a couple years, and since we hadn't driven through downtown on I-71 in a while we hadn't seen it until just now. But when we were living in Columbus that area of the highway had just finished a massive overhaul project, and here they are screwing with it again. Now I understand that construction stimulates the economy by bringing in workers to the area, so it's not all bad. But it is a massive inconvenience for travelers and those who drive it each day for work. How could the planners who did the first overhaul not have anticipated that Columbus would continue to grow?

• When we started this trip I would have told you that Alabama (the state) was nothing special. After spending some time there I have to admit that I am starting to like it. Part of that is due to the overall vibe of the south, which just feels comfortable to Allyson and I. But Alabama has several cities that seemed to have more going on than we anticipated. Also, everything is super cheap down there. Gas was less than $2.50/gallon, Coca-cola was cheap, everything was cheap. It also didn't hurt that it was 70-80 degrees and sunny when we were there.

• In March I had the generator on the motorhome serviced to address an issue where it would shut off due to over-frequency at unexpected times. This started happening a lot at the end of the season last year. I spent some time troubleshooting it and when I could see it wasn't a simple fix I decided to take it to a professional. It was money well spent because the generator worked well the whole trip, and we sure used it a lot, especially when we slept overnight at the Cracker Barrel. I think the generator ran for nearly 24 hours straight at the beginning of the trip. If you ever need a generator serviced I highly recommend AmShan Mobile Equipment in Sheffield, Ohio.

• Boy did it feel good to be back out on a road trip with the family. It had been almost six months since our last trip of 2024 for Halloween....six! My favorite thing to do is drive the motorhome with Allyson and all the kids, so it was great to be back at it again this year.