Our Summertime DC/NYC/Hershey/St. Louis/Branson Road Trip Summary (REALLY LONG)

[JoLaLaLa]

Since this is really too long to rewrite, I copied this from my myspace blog, thinking someone from here might be interested in seeing what we did over the summer in lieu of our usual weeklong trip to Branson. Since my hubby had hardly been out of state, and NEVER for vacation, we just mainly wanted to get out there and get a taste of as many places as we could see in his alloted vacation time to see which ones struck our fancy to return to one day. It was a lot of fun!

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Hey all.... we're back! After 11 days (12 nights) on the road, we are finally back home and ready to sleep in our very own beds! Not that we didn't have fun- because we did for sure. It was a blast! But as always, it's nice to return home as well. While not everything worked out the way we'd originally planned, we still crammed a heck of a lot of things into the short time we had. I'll try to post a summary of what happened followed by a link to all the pictures I posted online, thanks to having high speed internet access in all the places we stayed.

1st Night- We left on the evening of the 18th, planning to stop whenever we got tired but decided to keep on driving straight through the night, switching off drivers as we got tired.

Day 1- Thursday July 19th- Accidentally forgot about the time change and due to driving straight through, ended up in Knoxville, TN right in the middle of morning rush hour, which according to my dear hubby (who was driving while I was asleep) was like 4 lanes of solid traffic, going somewhere around 95 mph bumper to bumper. Boy am I glad I was sleeping! Drove through the Great Smoky Mountain area, as well as into Virginia and the Shenendoah Valley, both of which looked very beautiful, but I'm sure would have been even moreso had we not hit thundershowers while in the area. Apparently all the rain from Oklahoma decided to hitch itself to our car and follow us on the trip. lol Also- on the bad timing trend, we hit the DC metro area right at evening time rush hour. It actually wasn't too bad though. Drivers there are way more courteous than even in Tulsa, so that was a plus side. Ended up at our hotel in Chevy Chase, MD (a Washington D.C suburb) that evening, right AFTER their pool closed, so we decided to have a family pizza and movie night in the room instead.

Day 2- Friday July 20th- Rode the Metrorail (subway) into Washington D.C. for the day where we did a bit of walking around and also took the tour we'd planned on the Opentop Sightseeing double-decker bus. Waited until after Friday evening rush hour and then drove up into the Baltimore area to stay the night with our cousin, where her hilarious son John tortured/entertained our children into near instanity by the end of the night. Actually I'm not sure who was torturing whom the most, but they were definitely having a good time either way.

Day 3- Saturday July 21st- Drove back into the DC suburbs, where we parked at one of the Metro parking lots and rode back into the city for the day. Wanted to visit the Capitol, but seeing as we had food and water with us for the kids (both of which are prohibited in the building), and no place to keep it, we wouldn't have been able to get in, so we had to skip it this time. Visited the Smithsonian Air & Space museum, but it was so crowded we could barely get through with the strollers, so we mostly just let the kids look at the things hanging from the ceiling and the open area displays and then moved along. We ate lunch from a vendor on the National Mall area, then walked all the way out to see the Lincoln Memorial (and WOW is that thing far from a metro station!!!) and then wound our back up the several (very long) blocks to the metro to head out towards our car. We then drove into Baltimore again where we had dinner with Jo (the cousin we were staying with) and all her wonderful kids- except George who was too good to eat with us... LOL! Just kidding, George. We know why you weren't there- and totally understand the whole renovating on a timed schedule thing. Maybe next time! Dinner was HLARIOUS! We were having real authentic Maryland food- blue crabs! But we forgot to warn our oldest diaghter about it and how they would look, so when the crabs got put out on the table, the look of terror on her face was priceless! I think she thought they were still alive and were coming to get her! I think she lightened up a bit when she found out she got to whack them with a hammer. LOL! I don't have pics of that, but it was hilarious.

Day 4- Sunday July 22nd- Drove into Philadelphia, where we were planning on seeing the Liberty Bell, Independence Hall, and finding a genuine Philly cheesesteak. Unfortunately, due to WAY too much construction, no parking areas, and poorly marked roads, we accidently ended up crossing the bridge into New Jersey and having to pay a stupid toll to get back across. We finally got to see the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall, but were already expected at my Uncle & Aunt's right about then, so had to forego the cheesesteak in order to get on the road to their house- which was still an hour and a half away!

Day 5- Monday July 23rd- The Oklahoma rain curse followed us once more. The day before had been beautiful, and as it turned out, so was the day after, but this day- the ONE day that we had planned to visit New York City, It decided to rain... ALL DAY! (Until we were leaving, that is) Despite the rain, being soaked all day, and missing out on our planned trip to the Empire State Building because of the poor visibility, I think we have all agreed this was our most fun day. We saw SOOOOO many things... and never even left Manhattan! We went to the world's largest transportation hub (Grand Central Station), the world's largest toy store (Toys R Us Times Square), the world's largest Build-A-Bear, the world's most well known park (Central Park), as well as doing a lot of other cool things- such eating at Hard Rock Cafe in Times Square, walking by the Ed Sullivan Theater (where they film the David Letterman show), trying to meet Rupert at the Hello Deli (right around the corner from and as seen on David Letterman, but was unfortunately already closed for the night), walking down Broadway and through Times Square. Very awesome!

Day 6- Tuesday July 24th- Started our journey back westward this day. Drove to the Hershey Chocolate World in Hershey, PA, where we did the ChocolateWorks Tour as well as their TrolleyWorks tour, which were both very informative and entertaining. And we even got to sample some of their chocolate... Mmmmmmmmm! Found a room in the Harrisburg area (the Pennsylvania capital which is just down the road from Hershey), swam in their freezing cold indoor pool and then went to bed.

Day 7- Wednesday July 25th- Drove westward again all day, where we stopped just outside of Indianapolis, IN and got a room. We barely missed their pool hours here, so ended up having another pizza and movie night in the room. This is also the day we ended up getting in the wrong lane leaving Harrisburg due to contruction bottlenecking the traffic and didn't get a receipt for the toll road and ended up paying $20 for driving just a little ways because they thought we'd driven then length of the whole state. Ugh!! We decided we hate New Jersey and Pennsylvania roads. Soooooo busy and soooo confusing in places, with little to no signage, where they just expect you to be a local and know where you're going beforehand. Plus, they seem to have more construction than Oklahoma, and that's hard to beat. LOL

Day 8- Thursday July 26th- Drove into St. Louis, Missouri, where we were planning on going up into the Gateway Arch. Due to the malfunction they'd had earlier in the week when folks got stuck up in the South side, they were down to one side of trams, and the wait time was over 3 hours! We thought better of waiting around that long and instead decided to just see it from the ground. We took a carriage ride down the riverfront to help entertain the girls a bit, before climbing back in the car and heading the rest of the way to our final stop- Branson, Missouri- where we met my mom at her timeshare condo for the weekend.

Day 9 through 11- Friday July 27th through Sunday July 29th- Tried to relax a bit from all our journeys before heading home. We still did a few fun things there as well though. Ate lunch at Joe's Crab Shack out in Branson Landing area, rode the Branson Scenic Railway, did a bit of swimming in the resort pool, went to the Tracks and rode go karts & bumper boats, etc., took a winery tour, and of course- as always- did some outlet mall shopping before heading home Sunday evening. Oh yeah- and also Saturday evening, Mom kept the girls in the room so Tom & I could have a nice dinner to ourselves at Olive Garden, so that was great, except that he had a bad headache. Still- a nice dinner without children was quite nice after so long being on the road all together.

All in all- a VERY fun trip- and I am so glad we went. It was a nice and very well needed change of pace, but now we've got to get back into gear here at home and get ready for everything in the next couple weeks.

I have posted a lot of the pics I took on the trip on my photobucket account, but be forewarned- none are cropped or color adjusted or anything like that right now, so some of them aren't the best quality. I just wanted to be able to get a few up so everyone that wanted could see the kinds of things we saw.

If for some reason the link won't work, just copy and paste it into your address bar:


http://s19.photobucket.com/albums/b1...20July%202007/



Enjoy!

[Cheesecake]

How cool is that...brought back memories.

We went on a car/pulling RV trip every year with small children

Rest of the time we went camping with our RV Club...

We started when Twin Sons were 3 and Daughter was 41/2.



I did that til I remarried and married a farmer with the ''campsite'' on site...roflol.
fishing holes within fences.........and NO TRAFFIC.

But my kids saw every national park and ''good things'' west of the Mississippi...........I really need to take them now to the East...but since they are older than you ... they take themselves.............lol.

Im so happy you had a good time, and so happy you posted it here.

Thanksssssssssssss for the good read.
xoxoxoxo