This road trip, I was prepared. I bought some nifty little travel bag thingies (on sale), rolled our clothes into little tubes, and packed the suitcase in what was actually a somewhat organized fashion. I fit all of the clothes and toiletries for myself and the two kids into one suitcase, and still had room for my daughter’s flute and her music and about 20 more disposable pull-ups than we needed.
On Sunday, after 4.5 hours on the road, the kids and I dropped my husband off in New Jersey.
We settled Daddy into his dorm room (which involved climbing into the empty wardrobes and then jumping out and scaring each other, getting free cookies from the registration staff, chasing the birds and squirrels on the otherwise quiet campus, and taking a couple of potty breaks) and then we traveled down the road a bit to a hotel outside of Philadelphia.
This stop was a little gratuitous, but I’d never taken a road trip of any significant duration on my own with the kids. An overnight stop would break up the remaining 4.5 hours of the drive and give the kids a chance to swim in the hotel pool and sleep in hotel beds. You’d think our six weeks living in a hotel last summer would have dampened their enthusiasm for hotel stays, but if anything it seems to have done the opposite. They seem to have the sense that a hotel is just a variation on the idea of “home.”
Imperfect Happiness 