Sorry I didn’t hold up my end of the deal and post every night like promised but I was exhausted. I tried typing while passengering but I got car sick so that didn’t last past a few sentences. I finally completed editing & condensing 5,000+ pictures & I'm in the process of creating multiple slideshow with music to showcase them, I hope it all pays off in the end, and again, I’m sorry for the delay! To move forward & post something about our roadtrip, I desided to give you all the tools we used to make our roadtrip a success. We would do everything EXACTLY the same way, it was so much fun!
These are the sites, apps, & strategies we used:
· Create a Google account, I SWEAR it pays off, plus you can have another email address to receive a 20% off coupon from Bed Bath & Beyond
· Make sure to load Google Maps onto your smart phone, it allows you to access your saved maps that are on your Google account creating a stress free {and paperless} trip.
· Plan to stop every 3-4 hours or 300 miles, depending upon your car’s mileage. Again, Google Maps was my knight in shining armor when it came to this {As he always is!}. Here is an example of the route I created {we did end up stopping at other places, but I'm going to cover that later}:
*Note the stop at the Grand Canyon and Google already has these icons loaded for you to choose from
· Latitude on Google+ allows your friends & loved ones to be able to track your journey OR if you want to track your own, with time stamps, I highly recommend joining.
· Load the app Gas Buddy onto your phone! You can look up gas by zip codes, cities, or around your location {Which is what we did}. When we were around 280 miles I’d start looking up gas stations along the route we were driving. It was extremely helpful & because of this app, we never paid over $4 a gallon, which is something to gloat about in California!
· Make an accessible lunch/snack kit. We didn’t want to waste a lot of time or money stopping to eat so we had one big ice chest in the bed of the truck filled with goodies, but we also had a smaller one in the backseat filled with Energy Drinks, lunch meat, mayo, cheese, & snacks.
*Note: do NOT leave your snacks in a mesh bag on the floor of your car if you have a dog, they will step on it and smash all your goodies.
Example 1: Zebra PANcakes
· Play games! We all know the billboard/sign alphabet game & punch buggy, but my favorite of the trip was the memory alphabet game, but I don’t think Cody enjoyed it as much as me {he's such a cheater!}
· Grab about 20-50 of your favorite or recently watched DVDs for the road. Movies are 2-3 hours long & since you’re stopping every 3-4 hours they help kill time between stops. The reason I suggest bringing the ones you’ve seen the most benefits the current driver since they can’t watch the movie. Seriously, the driver better not be watching the movie!
· Pandora became a sanity savor for us. Since we took shifts sleeping the comedy channel became our best friend. We have an axillary jack that hooked our truck up to our iPad.
· Invest in Car Phone Charges!! If you didn’t get one at the time of purchasing your phone, this is an obvious must, especially if you’re using GPS on your phone. We bought a charger that had a spot for 2 phones for those of you with a single option.
· Veer off track! Don’t try to stick to your schedule or to your route. If you see something interesting along the way, stop! This makes for a better & more fun roadtrip. Plus, things never go as planned, so you’re just setting yourself up for failure if you strive for perfection. One of my favorite moments was pulling over to let the dogs eat & drink when we arrived in Arizona. It was early in the morning and we watched the sunrise over a mountain while we stretched our legs
· If you’re traveling with dogs, STOP AT DOG PARKS along the way. Everyone gets a chance to stretch their legs, it tires the dogs out so they won’t annoy you in the car, & it gives you a chance to meet new people that can tell you cool places to stop along your journey! If you don’t know how to search for dog parks, I used Google & BringFido.com. Also, if you layer “dog parks” on top of your route you can choose to visit the one that won’t take you too far off course.
· The most important advice I can give is an obvious one. RELAX! You're on vacation, enjoy every moment. If you get lost, eh, who cares? Embrase it, stop somewhere to eat a meal, or just for dessert, make it worth the "mistake!"
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