This summer has truly been the summer of all summers. I can’t believe that the girls are already back in school and that my fall semester of college has picked right up, it seems as if this summer was so jammed packed that it just seemed to fly right by us. Back in May when my dad, Kevin, came to visit us here in Wisconsin, we had discussed the possibility of taking a road trip with the girls up to Vermont to visit my dad and my step-mom, Shelley, for several days. Andrew and I discussed it for a while and sat down with our budget to see if we could afford to make such an extensive trip. For years, Andrew and I talked about our desire to start taking the girls on road trips since both of us grew up doing the very same thing with our families. This drive to Vermont just seemed like the perfect little opportunity to start these adventures with our own girls.

After laying out all our finances and coming up with a doable budget, we started the official planning for our first ever family vacation! It was quite exciting to start saving ideas from Pinterest and come up with all the fun places to visit and ways to pack (which I will be sharing all about in the future). Is it just me or does anyone else love the process of packing for trips?! There’s something so fun about it! In the few weeks leading to our trip, we started making our preparations by getting the van checked, buying all our travel meals, and getting the house organized before we zoomed off to New England for ten days! We made a driving plan that after getting around Chicago, we would stay close to the top border of Indiana, Ohio, and Pennsylvania before crossing over the top half of New York and eventually making our way into the state of Vermont, where my dad and step-mom live. So, basically, a fancy way to describe what Google Maps told us to do.

The early morning of July 27th was the first official moment that our trip started. All our bags had been packed into the van and we were driving on the highway, making our way to Illinois. During the drive, Isabelle and Sophie sat in the back of the van, playing with their tablets while Poppy took place in the middle, snuggled up with her panda that my dad had given her during his visit. Andrew and I spent the 18+ total travel hours talking and listening to our favorite comedians on Spotify. Most of our travels were seamless and smooth until we came to the exit that would take us around Chicago, which we regrettably missed. What should have been an easy and small detour ended up turning into a very slow paced drive through Chicago.

My anxiety definitely had a lot of fuel and was severely tested during this entire trip, it was when we finally made it out of Illinois and were driving through Indiana that I pulled up my Google Maps and truly realized how far away we were actually going to be traveling. I couldn’t believe how far we were going to be away from home. Considering that this was our first vacation, the realization that the safety of my family relied upon me was sitting pretty heavy on my shoulders. I was able to find some semblance of peace and equilibrium throughout the trip (which I’ll go into detail on how I coped in another post) and turn my perspective to the positive. As much as I didn’t like driving through Chicago, it was fun to allow the girls to have an opportunity to see all the big buildings and show them all the train cars that transit people to the heart of the city.

After our excursion to Chicago, we finally made it to Indiana and after several hours of driving, we made it to about 30 minutes from the Pennsylvanian border in Ohio. We found ourselves at a Holiday Inn in Ashtabula, Ohio where we proceeded to set up camp for the night. We decided to stop early and give the girls the chance to take full advantage of the indoor pool while I took a moment to take a breather and binge watch The Office on Comedy Central in our hotel room. We ended up all crashing pretty early in the night with a tired and cranky Poppy wedged right between Andrew and me in the hotel bed. Turns out she was not into the idea of sleeping in her pack and play all by herself. The next morning we all woke up early and enjoyed the free continental breakfast before packing our van and hitting the road once again.

On our second day of travels, Andrew and I made the decision to take a pitstop to Niagara Falls. This “little” pit stop ended up being a few hours of waiting in line for the Maid of The Mist tour in the hot sun. But the boat ride on the Maid of The Mist was totally worth it and the images came out amazing. We still have the blue ponchos we wore during the boat ride! After we got into our car, we decided that we were just going to clutch it and drive the seven more hours that it was going to take to get us to my dad’s house in Vermont. We knew that once we hit Malone, New York we’d have to continue to drive all the way to Vermont since there is pretty much no civilization on that drive in between New York and Vermont. We made a final stop to McDonald’s to tide the kids over with nuggets and fries on the last little bit of driving. Then we jumped into our van and drove the final two hours.

At around 11 pm, we rolled up to my dad’s house. We ended up crashing right away in my dad’s spare bedroom and spent the night sleeping on the floor because Poppy apparently likes to kick people in her sleep and would only sleep if she was wedged in between Andrew and me, once again. But we woke up that Sunday morning taking it slow, enjoying some coffee and hanging out with my dad and step-mom. We walked around their backyard and saw their garden, my dad took the girls to teach them how to fish in the water that flows down from the dam that’s across the street from their house. After a few hours, we made the drive out to Richford to check out our Airbnb that my dad had booked for us. We arrived at the house and just soaked in the view. It was beautiful. After being in Wisconsin for so many years, I had totally forgotten that Vermont had so many mountains. From the deck of our Airbnb, you could see the little spot where the Jay Peak Resort was!

The following days were spent sightseeing around Vermont and hanging out with my dad and step-mom. We took the girls to see the Teddy Bear Factory, the Echo Center, and Santa’s Village in New Hampshire during the five days that we spent in Vermont. I also took a day to visit some friends that I hadn’t seen in years, photograph a brand new Coffee Musings, and let the girls spend a day with my dad and Shelley, hanging out at the lake. We even drove past roads I used to drive back in the day when I was in high school. Talk about a blast from the past! We ended our final night of the trip at the Airbnb, grilling up burgers and hanging out on the deck while the kids ran around the yard.

It felt so weird being back in Vermont. When Andrew and I moved from Vermont to Wisconsin back in 2009, we didn’t move away with pleasant memories. A lot of bad things had happened to both of us when we lived there but I think this trip was important for us in so many different ways. Not only did Andrew and I get to make brand new good memories and leave those bad ones in the past, but we also gave our girls a chance to make good memories, have an awesome first vacation, and to get to know my dad and step-mom better. And I have to admit, for being the first vacation that we’ve ever taken as a family (with just the five of us), it went amazingly well. It wasn’t without its hiccups (people cutting in line at Niagara, Poppy falling into a rose bush, and the millions of flies in our Airbnb) but the hiccups were worth enduring through so that we could enjoy a genuine vacation and more time with our family.

And this post wouldn’t be complete if I didn’t end it with an enormous thank you to my dad and my step-mom who helped us out tremendously financially during our trip and were such gracious hosts. Thank you guys, from the bottom of my heart!

 

Other 2018 Road Trip Posts:

Niagara Falls (coming soon)
Santa’s Village (coming soon)
Toledo Zoo (coming soon)

Photography Details

Film Lab: PhotoVision
Film: Kodak Gold 200 @ 200 iso
Camera: Pentax A3000
Lens: 50mm f/2