40 Essential Items for a Three Week Road Trip

The 40 Essential Items to 24 Days on the Road with Your Kids

ie:  The Packing List

9 days from right now, I'll be taking off with four kids (ages 19, 10, 7, and 3, and picking up an 18 year old along the way) on a grand adventure of a road trip.  We'll be visiting 15 states in 21 days and camping in our tent AND in our van!  See the pics below for our setup.  So, here's the conundrum: I have to be able to fit everything from the trunk in the front two seats for sleeping when we aren't tenting it.  Here, I'll show you....

This is the layout of the van.  See the trunk space?  See the front seat space?  Well, the whole list of stuff, minus the air mattress, sleeping bags and pillows need to go from the back.......................

to in between the front seat and the dash.  This includes Annika's car seat.  So I'm posting my list to make sure I didn't forget anything, or maybe even skinny it down!  We've done it for two years running.  Next year, we'll be flying to Alaska and Hawaii, so I'll have a whole NEW set of problems....HAHA!  #camperproblems Please comment and FOLLOW!

1.  Air Mattress
2. Sleeping Bags x4
3. Pillows
4. Cooler with Ice
5. Fresh Food
6. Dehydrated Food
7. WATER
8. 2 pair long pants each
9. 3 pair shorts each
10. 5 pair underwear each
11. 5 t-shirts each
12. 1 sweatshirt/jacket each
13. 1 pair tennis shoes each
14. 1 pair Sandals each
15. 5 pair socks each
16. 1 swim suit each
17. 1 towel each
18. 2 pair jammies each
19. deodorant
20. shampoo
21. conditioner
22. body wash
23. toothbrushes
24. toothpaste
25. face wash
26. moisturizer
27. Sunscreen
28. Bug spray
29. Benadryl/Motrin/tylenol/valium
30. money
31. MOVIES
32. BOOKS
33. Emergency Kit
34. Atlas
35. Computer/Charger
36. Cell phones/charger
37. Tent
38. Tarp
39. Stove
40. Baby Back Pack

Car Camping:

 

Tent Camping:

The Route

So planning is a HUGE part of trips like this.  Just kidding.  Having a general idea of a plan and being ridiculously flexible is the MOST IMPORTANT THING I can tell you about doing a trip like this.
Gannon wants so badly to go to the Pentagon, that we actually booked that in advance.  Yes, I'm taking Gannon to the Pentagon.  I'll post a link for the GoFundMe for my bail money later.  We HAVE to be at the Pentagon on July 14th at 1400.  That's our only MUST.  So here we go....We leave Sunday at 3:00 PM.

Leg 1:  Leave Cibolo and go to Baton Rouge, LA.  Putz around the old capitol for a bit, see some of the history of LA.  Drive to P'Cola, FL!  We'll probably go across to Gulf Breeze and spend some time on the boardwalk, trying to not be eaten by sharks or contract flesh eating bacteria.  Next stop, Noccalula Falls in Gadsden, AL.  This, according to my friend Tammi, is a MUST SEE.  From there, we go to Lithia Springs State Park out side of Atlanta to see confederate ruins where Hunger Games was filmed, and see my awesome cousins Lenny and Sue!  North to Charlotte where there is an abundance of historical stuff to see and do.  We have to fit West Virginia in there somewhere, so Monongahela State Park is where leg one ends.

From West Virginia, things get CRAZY.  We spend a few days in DC, up to Gettysburg, over to Philly, PA, to New York City.  We could easily spend over a week in each place, but we're hitting the highlights.  From NYC, we're going to Plymouth Plantation, MA, then over to Boston to walk the Freedom Trail.  We won't have hit all the states without a stopover in Maine, so lobster dinner, here we come!  This is the end of leg 2 and the northern most point in our adventure.

From Kittery, we have a looooong drive to Niagra Falls State Park!  We were originally hoping to go up to Ontario, but opted to stick to our goal of 50 states before "international" travel.  From Niagra Falls, we head to Cleveland area for fun with Debbie, Thad, and the kids.  VERY excited about that time together.  Up to Detroit for the auto museum, then down down down to Mammoth Cave, KY.  I LOVED Mammoth Caves as a kid.  Back up to Indianapolis for the Children's Museum, then to see mom and dad in Galesburg.  From the 'Burg, we'll take an Amtrak up to Chicago and spend a day in the Windy City.  End Leg 3.

Leg 4 is where total whimsy comes in!  I want to go the Shreveport, LA on the way home to find out information on my great grandparents from Sicily.  Other than that, we can go to St. Louis, Kansas, Oklahoma, Dallas....wherever the wind takes us! (Hopefully the wind and not a tornado...).

So there you have it!  T-3 days and counting!  Now I have to disconnect from the computer so I can start packing.  Ugh.

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The Most Epicist of All Road Trips 2014

2014 road trip was fantastic. We went 7,152.6 Miles.  We drove for 147:40:24 hours.

We visited 16 states in 24 days.  We hit MANY landmarks on "must see" lists.

We bonded.  We grew stronger.  We grew as a family.  We loved it.  We're doing it again.  15 days till our next adventure begins.
I wasn't sure I would be able to do it this year, as Alia moved to California in January to live with her grandparents, and opted to not come this year.
Fortunately, working at a high school this past year, I was honored to be introduced to Ms. Kayleigh! She comes very highly recommended.
I will be very excited to introduce her in a later post.
I'd love to hear suggestions/questions for this years trip!  Comment below, and subscribe :)

Day 2: NOLA

New Orleans.  The Big Easy. NOLA.  The City the Care Forgot.  We started bright and early in our Wal-Mart parking lot.  With a dead battery.  No joke.  No problem, as we got a jump very quickly and were able to enjoy some Wal-Mart doughnuts while we waited for help!  We drove to the French Quarter and parked.  We putzed around Jackson Square and the French Quarter, just taking in the sites.

Unfortunately, we didn't have a great experience with The Crescent City.  Just crossing Bourbon Street, we were greeted by the smell of vomit and stale alcohol.  The entire city reminded me of peopleofwalmart.com.  There was voodoo practice, palm readers, and tarot card readers on every corner.  We were briefly chased by a transvestite.  Wearing fishnet stockings.  At 10:00 on a Sunday.  This momma was NOT impressed.  

We trekked to St. Louis Cemetery #1.  There, we saw Nicholas Cage's future final resting place, as well as a menagerie of historical grave sites.  It was an "interesting" place to visit.

Thankfully, it started raining!  A beautiful, torrential, cleansing rain.  

We left New Orleans.  I doubt we'll return, but we had fun none the less.

VanCation

In a previous post, I mentioned camping in our van.  I want to show you what I mean.  A fellow mom and blogger Mrs. Gray wrote recently about "mommin it".  This.  This right here is the epitome of mommin it.  I packed 3 of my kids, collected luggage from the 16 year old, packed myself and then fit it all in our 2008 Nissan Quest with enough space to sleep all 5 of us, comfortably.  Ready?

Step 1: Take about a weeks worth of clothing, a cooler, a swamp cooler, an air mattress, some sleeping bags, and a baby back pack, and a Wal-Mart Hammock and put them in the back of the van.  Not too hard.

Step 2:  When its time to turn in for the night, place all items except air mattress, sleeping bags and hammock to the front two seats.  See yesterdays post for the placement of the swamp cooler.

Step 3:  Put all the seats down and get the air mattress inflated.  I got one with an built in pump and plug it into our inverter so I didn't have as many pieces to loose.

Step 4:  The sleeping bag goes between the mattress and the front two seats in a nice little person sized cubby.  My 5 year old claimed this spot as her very own.  Of course I didn't manage to catch a picture of this part, but I will over the next 24 days, and I'll show you then.

Step 5:  Put up the hammock.  Not going to lie, this was a little challenging to figure out.  The length of the fabric was too long for the van.  The who thing was almost to the ground before I made some adjustments.  Two ties go out the trunk and tie to the roof rack at the very back of the van.  I could knot the front end, but for just a little extra circulation, I drug it out the moon roof and tied it to the roof rack till it was to taut that you almost think no one can get in it.  Weight pulls it down just enough.  If it rains, I'll try knotting it off where I can tie off through the sliding doors, but this works for now!

<---- here is the corner of the sleeping bag

There it is!  Basic sleeping set up is DONE!  

The kids LOVE it.  I'm sure I'll have some better pics as we travel, but you get the basic idea.  Well, bed it is, as we are leaving in 6.5 hours!  WOOHOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!