This past week we traveled (by car) from the suburbs of Chicago to the great state of South Carolina to visit my husband's 93 year young grandmother.
I thought I would share with you some things I learned along the way:
---whatever you do, get a suite. Hotels with suite rooms were our friend. We took 3 days to get to South Carolina and at every stop we stayed at a place that had a room to sleep (with a door!) and a "living" room. This way we could put the 2 year old (in her pack n play) to bed earlier than the rest of us.
---when you don't have a suite, be prepared for a lonnnnnng night. Our last night was in Indianapolis. We opted to just get a regular room with two double beds and no suite. Let's just say we all went to bed around 8:30pm and the 6 y.o. was not too happy with this idea. I will say it again, suites are your friend.
---if you are ever in Indianapolis and you have young children in tow, you must visit the Indianapolis Children's Museum. It is world class. And this comes from someone who has been to A LOT of children's museums. Not once did I want to bite someone. That says it all.
---two year olds tend to have a shelf life of about 5 hours in a car. Drove 6+ hours to Indiana on Saturday and at about the 5 hour mark, meltdowns started to ensue. Thankfully we had the ...
---iPad. Get one. They are well worth it. We don't have a DVD player in our car so this was a true Godsend. Yes, we had to watch one two many Dora episodes, but it truly did help calm the 2 y.o. and it pretty much eliminated the "Are we there yet?" comment from the older one.
---Illinois and Northern Indiana sure are flat and boring to drive in. If you live by mountains, consider yourself blessed.
---if you have a older person in your life and you don't see them very often, make the effort. They will appreciate it and your future self will be glad you did.
