The Long Drive Home

Today was the day we had to leave to drive home. Our condo wasn't perfect, but there were a lot of great things about it. I took a few last pictures of it, including the pool which hadn't opened yet for the day.

Meghan and I were up by 5:30, and by 8:00 we had the kids up and ready to go.  We took one last look at our condo as we drove away.

We took a different route home, since we wanted to be able to stop for the night in St. Louis if needed.  Retracing our route to Florida would have put us in the middle or the Ozarks at night, which didn't seem desirable, so we headed north.  We stopped for lunch in Alabama at Whataburger, and we made a mid-afternoon stop at a truck stop in Tennessee.  The huge parking lot was empty, so we let the kids run around for a bit to stretch their legs.  We later stopped for dinner at Panera.  The somewhat frustrating part was that every stop seemed to take nearly a full hour.  Whether it was a stop for food or just for gas, snacks, and diaper changes, it took way longer than we wanted, but that's part of traveling with kids.


We went this route to allow for us to stop in St. Louis for the night, but as we approached it, we felt awake enough to keep on driving, at least with the help of our friends Sugar-Free Red Bull and Diet Mountain Dew.    By the time we got home, it was nearly 4am, which made it a 20-hour trip, including stops.  The kids did so great on the trip, but since it was the middle of the night by the time we got home, they were super tired (well, I guess we all were).  It was a great vacation, and all in all it turned out to be better than we expected.  We look forward to more family vacations in the future.