The Long Road

After a couple weeks of careful planning we have taken the brothers on the longest road trip of their lives. Big brother had no school on Friday so we left as early as we could on Friday. I had mentally prepared myself for the boys possibly arguing with each other in the car and needing to stop every hour on the hour for bathroom or stretching breaks. They were great in the car. We drove four hours before they got really hungry. I was the one who had to stop for a water or to use the bathroom. We stopped off somewhere in Pennsylvania for supper. It was a good time to get off the road, traffic had been slowing down. After a good meal and a full hour out of the vehicle, we drove some more and it got late. We contemplated staying in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania but decided against it since that would leave ten more hours of driving in the morning if we did stop. The kids were tired by now and had started the “are we there yet” question. We made it as far as Washington, D.C. the first day and found a place to stay for the night. We had driven five hundred and sixty miles. A few miles over our goal.

The kids quickly fell asleep on their hotel beds. In the morning we got off to another early start. We found an IHOP to eat breakfast at before another long day of driving. The breakfast was great and I’ve never seen my picky eater little brother eat so much. The only problem was we got stuck behind a few accidents after that. It took about four hours to make it eighty miles. We spent most of the time just sitting in one spot not moving. It was torture for me. My husband being a good sport made a game of people watching so that helped pass the ever slow ticking of time. The kids will never forget the traffic jam of Virginia, it went on for miles and miles. An oversight on my part was leaving the iPads in the trunk so they spent the majority of their time in the backseat without any technology. After twelve hours on the road instead of a planned six or seven we made it to our vacation destination, Myrtle Beach. The kids didn’t care that it was ten at night they ran straight for the beach, after what little brother called “the long road.”