Shore Nice to Sea You: Family Driving Vacations Part 1
Posted on 08 22, 2006 under Brokedad by foodad |
Back in the day, my dad would wake us up at the (_._) crack
of dawn. He would then proceed to toss my brother and I into the station wagon,
scream and yell at my mother while squeezing in a few more last minute
necessities, put the dog in the way-back, pay 88 cents a gallon for gas,
complain about it and then attempt to break the world record for slowest drive
time from Clevepuke, (not to be confused with Pittspuke or Pukesburg, PA) OH. to
Vacationland, USA,
also know as Buffalo, New York.
Some families have traditional vacations that they pass down
from generation to generation like “going to the lake” or whatever. All of my vacations as a kid were just as
lame as the one above. My old man and old lady’s idea of a vacation was what I
now call a DAYTRIP. Of course that is why I have chosen to do exact the
opposite of what my parents did. My kids
will benefit from the lameness of their grandparents.
There are so many options for a summer vacation and vacation
time is so short. How would I
decide? Kids like to have activities.
Kids love routine. Kids love rides. Kids love
the beach. My wife’s father and his wife always do the same thing every
year. For two weeks every summer, they
go to THE SHORE. Not wanting to spoil
their vacation, but also wanting a chance for the kids to get to know them
better, we tagged along for a week. Sure
it was going to be a long drive, but I decided that it would be worth it.
The days of “No snacks. No seatbelts. No holds barred!” are
long gone. On our vacation we ate donuts, Philly pretzel twists, Polish water
ice, Italian ice, kustard cones, Philly steak sandwiches (Philadelphia is a
delicious place), pizza, fudge, freedom fries (I’m still pissed at you France)
and wedges. A wedge = a grinder = a sub
= a hoagie ~= a hero.
You may be saying, wait a second here foodad, I do not live
within 10 hours of the coast, how can I take the kids to THE SHORE? THE SHORE is generic here. You do not need to go to THE SHORE, you just
need to find a place not super duper close to you that has some of the
previously mentioned wicked super important criteria. You forgot them and are
too lazy to reread? You have the attention span of a 5 year old! They are:
Activities for the kids, water, rides, easy access and junky food. For example, if you live in the Midwest, you could go to Cedar Point for a week. If you live in Buffalo,
you could go up to Canada
for a nice lake/lodge vacation. There
are boardwalks everywhere, not just by the ocean. We did go on one pretty cool boardwalk
and beach vacation with my grandparents as a kid. We drove up to Canada to a place called Wasaga Beach. As with all cool things during my childhood,
we did it once and we never did it again.
In part 1 of this series, I will go over some of the things
I did right. Tomorrow we’ll look at my mistakes. If this were the teevee,
Arnold and Willis would also learn a very important adult lesson.
1)
Packed
the night before I wanted to leave. Not only did I pack the night before, I
did a dry run the weekend before. No, I
do not have a lot of free time on my hands. I just wanted to make sure that I
could pack everything into the car and still be able to see out the back. This also allowed me to pack the car in a
stress free fashion. I did not bark at
my wife nor did I have one of those bursty looking veins bulging from my
forehead ala foodad senior.
2)
Made room
for double jogger. My wife was adamant about being able to bring one item
and one item only. Our brand spanking
new double jogger. I spent some extra time learning how to break it down and
fold it up easily. I also spent some time complaining that it was unnecessary given
that we had a perfectly awesome, light, EXPENSIVE and compact double stroller and
that the double was going to take up a ton of room in the car. That was a big waste of my time. This was a
fantastic idea. It made going to the
beach a snap. We just loaded the kids in the jogger, threw the beach chairs
(actually we used those outdoor reclining chairs with the canvas bags) on my back
and carried the beach bag. The jogger is like a SUS (Sport Utility Stroller) so
we rolled it right onto the beach. Since we stayed close, we left our chairs
and umbrella at the beach when we went home to eat lunch. It was a little risky, but we didn’t leave any
equipment that we could not easily replace. How did I fit the jogger and the
kids’ bike seats and still see out the back? One word: Thule.
Sweden
has done it again. We went on a ski trip
earlier in the year with the kids and I picked one up for obvious reasons. I had no idea that once I put it on the car,
I would not want to take it off. We use
it all the time. I now understand why even mini-van families with one or two
kids tote one.
3)
Bike. We rented bikes when we got there. If you
have the means to carry them, more power to you. Lock them up.
We locked up the jogger when we needed to leave it outside a store or
the arcade. We did bring the kids’ bike
seats as we checked in advance for places to rent them and did not find
any. You can pick them up relatively
inexpensively on ebay or craigslist. Do
not forget helmets for yourself and the kids.
If you wear yours, they will wear theirs. My 18 month old son loved wearing his after
he saw mine. “Hemet hemet
hemet!”
4)
Magna
Doodles. This time we did not shell out for the in-car-theater system. If you can afford it, I am sure that it makes
the trip go by faster, however you do need to hear the DVDs. Personally, I
prefer listening to Dandy Warhols, Arcade Fire and Red Hot Chili Peppers to
Beauty and the Beast while I drive. I need some stimulation in the event that
my wife is feeling like dozing before she takes a turn in the driver’s seat.
Magna doodles are the poor man’s DVD player.
When the kids got bored of drawing, my wife would draw them pictures of
trains and boats and princesses. They got a kick out of that. They spent a good hour or so on those.
5)
Kid
snacks and drinks. My wife brought a small cooler. This sucker was the size
of a lunch box. It fit a few cool drinks for the kids. This meant that we did not have to stop and
feed them expensive or unhealthy drinks at a rest stop. We also brought
Cheerios, Kix and cereal bars.
6)
Set my
time expectations low. The drive should have taken us around 6 hours. I
took several things into account:
a.
We would need to stop to change diapers and for
my daughter to use the bathroom.
b.
The kids would certainly need to stop to eat and
to stretch.
c.
No stop with the kids would ever be fast.
d.
We were leaving at a time that many others would
also be dashing for their favorite vacation spot.
e.
Many people would be trying to get to the same
place as I was.
We ended up taking about 3 extra
hours to get down and 1.5 on the way back.
I did not let this get me down as I was expecting the trip to be
sub-optimal.
7)
Car
fitness. I checked out the car in advance. I made sure that we had an oil
change recently, that tires were properly inflated, that we had wiper fluid and
since it is my wife’s car, I quizzed her on any potential problems. We also filled up the tank the night before
so we would not lose momentum filling up with gas. Filling up in the morning isn’t a big deal,
but it can make it feel like you are never going to make progress if you need
to keep stopping.
Packed
light did laundry. My wife led the charge on this one. She made sure that we packed light. We
brought mostly beach clothes and did laundry almost every night. This made
packing easier and made it so that when we got home, we were just unpacking
clothes rather than running them through the washer/dryer.
9)
I bought
ride tickets up front. Boardwalk
style amusement parks still use the old school ticket method rather than having
you pay admission to the park. We bought
the family package of tickets at the amusement park for $100 bucks. This gave us an “extra” 105 tickets to fool
around with. We did not throw them all
down at once, rather we went back several times during the week. The kids were
thrilled with a handful of rides a day.
The extra tickets also allowed us to go on a few rides with the kids
like the kiddie coaster. We were also able to treat my 13 year old
sister-in-law to rides.
Hopefully a lot of this stuff is obvious to you. I am sure
there are still a lot of foodad seniors out there though. Tomorrow: the flubs!
