Our Cross Country Road Trip

As May came to an end, so did our time in Boston. Jake had received a job offer in the area while in school, but after a lot of thought decided to not accept. Since the LL.M. program is only 9 months long, a lot of the students are placed with their job during the summer, but I'm not gonna lie there was alot of anxiety/fear accompanied with not knowing what we were going to do next. We put our stuff in the storage boxes that can be delivered wherever you need them since we literally had no idea where we would be off to next and decided to head out West and see our family until we had it all figured out. We made quite the road trip out of it since Jake had several meetings/interviews along the way as we drove nearly the entire length of the United States of America (pretty much we would have just needed to drive up to Maine and we'd have covered the whole thing diagonally).

Top Left: Yes that is an actual road sign in the Boston area. And no they aren't kidding. Top Middle: Us with our AMAZING friends the Briggs. They took such good care of us as we moved away. So many great people helping us with our move, taking our kids so we could pack, and even coming over to help us clean our house. The Briggs took us off to a fairwell lunch at a local foodie hot spot called Sophra and sent us off with two Trader Joe's bags heaping to the brim with fun road trip snacks. Lifesavers! (now how come we just couldn't have packed them too!) Top Right: Jake was rather proud of his tetris packing job. Bottom: The route that we drove.

From Boston we drove to Jake's aunt and uncle's house in New Jersey. It was so much fun to get to spend one last time with our East Coast family! Jake's birthday was the next day, and as we were on the computer the next morning figuring out where to book our hotel, we saw that we went basically right by Washington DC. The kids and I hadn't been yet, so we decided we'd hop in the car and get there as fast as we could to make his roadtrip birthday semi special. We got an awesome hotel thanks to our friend Nikki who works for Marriott and were able to walk right over to the Smithsonian and enjoy the air and space museum for a couple of hours. One of Carder's favorite movies at the time was Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian, so this was a dream come true for him. We barely finished the Air and Space Museum before they closed, and there was still like 9 more museums that make up the Smithsonian. I guess we will be making a trip back there one of these days (fingers crossed!)

Jake and Carder in front of the Museum

Carder was so excited to be there he asked for my phone so that he could take some pictures of things on his own. When I went through my photo roll later, the little guy impressed me with some of his creative compositions. Like that one on the bottom left that he took through the lense of a microscope.

The kids loved checking out the Boeing exhibit as well as seeing the model of the Wright brothers' first airplane. 

There was one exhibit that took you back to the WWI/WWII era, and talked all about what it took to be a flight stewdaress back in the day. Brenn was hilarious flipping trough all of the little tiles...I couldn't believe some of the criteria like there was a height and weight specification, you had to be "just below Hollywood beauty," a certain age, you couldn't have been married etc. I could not see those standards flying in today's society. It sure made us giggle.

Carder loved seeing all the Amelia Earheart planes and gadgets. Brenn on the other hand liked mainly to just run around and only sat still for this old black and white Mickey Mouse cartoon about aviation that they were showing. Needless to say she and Jake watched that baby a few times :)

Carder and Brenn trying out all the tools...the Wright siblings of the 21st century?

The kids were super happy to just be able to stretch their legs, jump on the bed and run around our hotel room. We got some AMAZING Indian food, it was like subway meets an Indian resturaunt as you got to creat your own Indian salad/sandwhich concoction. Delish! Gotta love yelp!!!

The next morning we woke up to our baby girl turning 2. Nana had given us a gift/card last time we saw her, so we had made sure we packed that, and good thing too since that was the only gift she had going on that day. (Hopefully she won't remember her 2nd birthday being stuck in her car seat basically all day)

We checked out of our hotel and tried to take advantage of the morning as best as we could seeing as much as we could before the kids' naps (which we had to take advantage of for our driving purposes). Our stroller was packed, and seeing that what was in our car is all we had for the summer and that the stroller would have taken up the majority of trunkspace, it didn't make the cut. The hotel had let us borrow an umbrella stroller for the Smithsonian, but once we checked out that wasn't really an option. Carder really wanted to see the Lincoln Memorial. (That giant Lincoln is a big deal in Battle of the Smithsonian). Washington DC is A LOT of walking. It was hot! Seriously the most muggy afternoon of our whole trip, including our ventures down south. The kids were losing it fast, but we did manage to get in a nice little walk by the Patomic River, walk through the Lincoln Memorial which offered a nice view of the Washington Monument (lame it was totally covered in all that scaffoliding!) 

The Lincoln Memorial was beautiful. The only thing that could have made it better was well-behaved children. Oh is that Carder being captured having a freak out on the bottom right? Yes, yes it is. He wouln't look at my picture but was not happy that he might not be in it, hence his back makes an apperance.

The kids were able to hold off from completly losing it as we did some races through the trees alongside the Patomic River.

We drove over the Arlington Memorial Bridge and got to do a quick drive by the White House before we headed out.

The Washington Monument and Brenn getting ready to completly lose it :) Oh the joys of traveling with little ones! We thought that we would be able to get a lot more in than we did, but if you have little people in tow, you gotta have a great stoller going on and really have it mapped out where you are going because it takes a considerable amount of time to get from monument to monument (especailly with those little pint-sized legs).

It would have been nice to have had a little more time in DC, but Jake already had a interview set up in New Orleans, so we were kinda on crunch time. We drove like crazy the rest of the day to get to Chattanooga, TN. And then in was on to New Orleans, LA. The stretches of road these days were awesome. We literally saw a billboard for "Tennesse Moonshine." I was so mad at myself for not getting a picture of that priceless moment! Also it was during this stretch that we drove through the Smokey Mountains, which were breathtaking. There are literally these pockets of cloud or fog that sit atop the trees and literally look like smoke coming out. Then along the river there was this blanket of mist/fog floating just on top, it was beautiful. I tried taking a picture out the window, but it didn't do it justice at all. I kept telling Jake this was like our sampler road trip, to see where we'd want to come back to. So maybe we will have to make a trip back to Tennessee one day because I still need to visit Nashville/Memphis and maybe Dollywood, because lets be honest if me and Miss Parton new each other, I'm pretty sure we'd be best friends :)

Louisiana's topography changed up the drive a lot. We were suddenly in buyoy country. A lot of the roads were built on top of or surrounded by water. We were a little skeptical of how New Orleans would be after seeing all of the Katrina fall-out on the news, etc. and it is still in need of some help, but we stuck to the French Quarter and felt just fine. When we first pulled up in the city it was a little scary. The best description is an old run down Vegas. But once we got into the French Quarter it was more quaint.

Top left: The view out our window. It was superfun to watch all the riverboats. Top Right: We went to the oldest candy store in New Orleans. Botton left: Carder was quite proud that he spotted this sign that said Mimi's name on it, so he had me take a picture of him. Bottom right: Carder wearing his Steak and Shake hat. We loved being in Steak and Shake country in the South. Yummy yummy!

The night we got there we walked around the French Quarter and enjoyed all the street musicians. There was a different musician/band on every corner and my kids loved listening to the music and dancing in the streets. We got to a well known little eatery called Cafe du Monde and got some delicious beignets. You sit at a little table, the menu is on the napkin dispenser on the table and consists of 3 things, orange juice, coffee and beignets. So good! It has been around since the 1800s, so it was fun for our family to get to experience that and some of New Orleans' history as we strolled the streets that evening.

After New Orleans our next stop was Galveston, Texas. My old college roommate (and one of my best friends in the whole wide world) is living down there with her family while her husband is attending medical school. We had such a blast with the Digis! They live right on the gulf and our host/hostess made us feel like we were at a resort pulling out all the stops with a beach/pool day, fine cuisine and teaching me a thing or two on how to tame Brenn's unruly mop top!

Oh it had been too too long since I'd seen miss Whitney...We sure wish the DiGiovonnis were closer! (still crossing our fingers for that to maybe happen as Ryan goes into his residency next year)

The Gulf was awesome. Not the clearest water, but it was like a gigantic bathtub... I could have sat in there forever! The kids loved it, not to mention their cute partners in crime.

After Galveston we went to Austin. Jake's cousin (and childhood best friend) Jeff and his family live there. They have kids around the ages of our kids and we had so much fun that we ended up extending our stay a day (and Jeff was able to get Jake some meetings with some people in town too). Carder and Jackson were like the Lloyd/Nydegger buds second generation and Brenn and Kaycee were either loving each other or driving each other nuts (fortunately we left on the positive of the two). We had a blast playing in their awesome backyard, going to the splash pad, getting snowcones and having our tastebuds tantalized by Torchy's Tacos (seriously Texas, you know how to eat!)

Our next stop was El Paso, Texas. My Nana and Papa and Aunt/Uncle and cousins live there. My Mom's youngest sister Jill and I are only 9 1/2 years apart, so we are actually closer in age than she and my mom are. The Ingles' house is kid heaven. I think my kids would have stayed there forever if we'd have let them. Jill worked her magic and worked with Carder on his swimming, and we just had so much fun getting to hang out with all of the family for a few days.

We lived at the pool, playing and eating popsicles. By the end of it Carder was giving those Ingles boys a run for their money with his little tan back that made us start calling him "brown sugar." 

Brenn loved being able to rund around their backyard and play her little heart out. And no trip to El Paso would be complete with out a trip to the "Getter store" to find some treasures!

The boys had a jolly good time making potions and taking bubble baths.

Next was Arizona where Jake had another interview. The kids were super stoaked with all their books/toys they got from the Ingles and Mom's trip to the getter store. Of course for our first meal we had to stop at IN N OUT, which we had missed so much (5 guys has nothing on the neon trees!) I got to make a fun little trip to last chance and we were able to visit with Jake's sister and brother-in-law, Allie, Ryan and the kids were super happy to see their cousin Carson.

Brenn and Carson are exactly 2 weeks apart and they were just loving on eachother singing and dancing to Mickey Mouse Clubhouse's "Hot Dog" song.

After Arizona we safley made it to my parents in California. Looking back on the map I can't believe we made that drive especially with two kiddos in tow (I'm not gonna lie, I think they may have handled it better than me). All in all it went pretty smoothly, we hit some CRAZY rainstorms in VA where it was pouring down so hard that even with your wipers going at their fastest you couldn't see anything, (we literally had to drive along slowly to find a spot for us to pull over as we waited it out), Georgia was a bumpy patch where Carder had to exit the car twice (the moving monster made a reapperance), and we got a flat tire on the border of TX/LA (hence the luggage all on the side of the road while Jake got all manly while he changed it to the spare, while I sat in the car and had to explain to Carder why he could not get out on the highway and lend his help). For as far as we drove, not to shabby of a list of minor road bumps. Jake keeps saying how much he enjoyed it and would like to do it again. Yes, it was an adventure, but next time I think I am voting for the 5 hour flight :)