Homemaking Deep Dive | Family Road Trip Adventures

We're talking about family road trip adventures with former guest and road trip enthusiast, Jenny Nanninga. 

Jenny, her husband, and their 5 girls love to travel from their home in California on the highways and byways of America to see what adventures they can discover. They have a particular fondness for national parks and we will discuss that a good bit in our conversation today. 

In This Episode:

• Jenny’s road trip background including a few worst and best trip stories
• Benefits of family road trips
• Why National Parks are a great destination
• Why camping is an economic option with more benefits than just saving money,
• Practical tips on how to plan a successful family road trip 

Connect with Jenny

IG @bloomwildschoolhouse

Teachers Pay Teachers

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/store/jennifer-nanninga

SHOW NOTES

All links and resources will be on the blog. Click the link below or go to www.theartofhomepodcast.com/blog and search "family road trips"

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Transcript

Allison 0:02

Hello, homemakers, and welcome to the Art of Home podcast, where we are exploring how homemakers cultivate a place to belong. I am your host, Allison Leeks. I'm a wife, I'm a mom, I'm a granny, and I have been practicing the Art of Home since 1992. Welcome everybody. Whether you're brand new here or you have been around for a while, I'm glad to have you, and I'm honored to be trusted with some of your very valuable time. We are going to hear a brand new deep dive conversation today. But first, I'm going to give you a very quick update. It has been a big week for this little ministry project of the Art of Home. We launched our seasonal publication, Homemaker's Journal, on Monday. And you all have shown up again. Thank you to everyone who purchased a hard copy, a digital copy, or both, during the soft launch last weekend or since Monday. I am thrilled that this project has been well received. It does seem to be something you all want to add to your homemaking resource toolkit. If this is the first time you're hearing about Homemakers Journal, be sure to listen to Monday's episode, Monday Motivation Number 58, where I share the why, what, where, and how of the project. If you are ready to order your copy, click the link in the show notes or go to homemakersjournal.com. I do have a special through the end of May. If you buy a print copy, you can get a digital copy for $1.99. So you can start reading right away. It's been quite a busy couple of weeks getting ready for Homemakers Journal for the launch. So I don't really have too much else to update you on. And uh therefore I'm just gonna get right into today's episode. Summer is coming soon, and many of you may be thinking about your travel plans for the summer. Last year we talked with Jessica Fisher about family international travel. And this year we are staying closer to home and talking about family road trip adventures with former guest and road trip enthusiast Jenny Nanning. Her wanderlust began with childhood family road trips, where she says she never wanted to fall asleep because she might miss something interesting in the scenery that they passed. And she would even get annoyed when her brothers fell asleep because they were missing out. Now, Jenny, her husband, and their five girls love to travel from their home in California on the highways and byways of America to see what adventures they can discover. They have a particular fondness for national parks, and we do discuss that a good bit in our conversation today. First, you'll hear more of Jenny's road trip background, including a few worst and best trip stories. We will discuss all the reasons why you should consider taking a family road trip, why national parks are a great destination, why camping is an economic option with more benefits than just saving money. And then Ginny gives some practical tips on how to plan a successful family road trip, including choosing a destination and a route to get there, figuring out your budget, where to save and where to splurge, and how to manage long car rides with kids, and then some car safety and prep tips. This episode is full of ideas to inspire your next road trip. So buckle up and let's get into it. I'll be back at the end with some closing thoughts and the long haul listener emoji. Whatever you are applying your hands to as you listen today, I know you will enjoy this deep dive on family road trip adventures. Welcome to the Art of Home. I am here with a brand new deep dive for you into summer road trip adventures with former guest Ginny Naninga. Ginny was a uh homemaker portrait um guest back, oh maybe uh I don't know. When when were you here last? Was that a year ago?

SPEAKER_01 4:23

Yeah, I think it was before Christmas.

Allison 4:25

It was a while ago. Um, and Ginny writes for um Homemaker's Journal, and she is passionate about summer road trips and adventures. So let me just give you a quick rundown on who Ginny is in case you missed her homemaker portrait, but you need to go back and listen to that. But Ginny has been a homaker for over 20 years and is a wife and mother to five daughters. She lives on the central coast of California, where she enjoys homeschooling her children, milking her goats, baking all the bread, and living in community with other believers. She loves books and adventuring and encouraging women in their roles as homemakers. Welcome back to the Art of Home, Jenny.

SPEAKER_01 5:04

Thanks. This is fun.

Allison 5:06

So glad to have you. Yes. How's the weather over in sunny California on this May Day?

SPEAKER_01 5:12

Actually, good. We've had a fairly cold April and May, which is unusual for us. You know, not much of a hardship because it's like the 60s, but um, it feels weird. So we're having it's warm this weekend. It's gonna be hot this weekend, so it's starting to nice.

Allison 5:27

Are you gonna go and do some do any adventuring this weekend with the we might have to head out to the coast or something? Okay. Well, I'm excited to talk adventures with you. Um, let's talk about why you're here. Why am I talking to you about this? Tell me a little bit about your road trip origin story, your adventure origin story. What gave you the bug for doing this?

SPEAKER_01 5:50

Okay, well, uh, when I was growing up, we would often take a trip, um, usually around spring break and sometimes in the summer. We always drove. Um, I never had flown anywhere as a kid. So we always had to go somewhere within driving distance. And living in California, we also weren't very far from Yosemite National Park. So I spent a lot of spring breaks at Yosemite. And then as my brothers and I got older, we would go a little further up the Oregon coast, Washington coast, and we would stay in hotels usually. Um, and but we would go hike and just kind of explore the national parks. And I have a lot of good memories from that. I can remember doing like a sunrise service in Bryce Canyon in Utah, like with snow on top of the hoodoos. And, you know, I so I have these memories that, and I just loved it. I would be awake the whole time. I would never want to sleep. I'd be so annoyed if my brothers fell asleep because they were missing things. And I just loved uh seeing everything. So I definitely had that in there. And then I've always been more of maybe a big dreamer, like big ideas, and I would come up with all these ideas of places we should go. And um, you know, we kind of stuck more to the West Coast, which was easier to get to in a short amount of time. So when I got married, um, we had we only had one daughter at the time, and we had all these flight miles. And I had always wanted to go to this place in Canada called Banff. And so I just said to my husband one day, I'm like, Do you want to go there? And I wasn't expecting him to say yes. And he did. He said, Let's do it, let's go. So we actually got my parents to meet us there. They drove, my brother came. We took our, I was pregnant with my second, we took the baby and we went to Banff and explored all over. It was obviously amazing because it's gorgeous there. But I say that that's the beginning of our family's road trips because my husband said yes to my crazy idea of like going out of the country on this trip with a baby. And um, and so we've gone somewhere every year since then with our kids, like no matter what, whether we had tiny babies or um not. And so I kind of took what my parents had given me and then went further with it because I just loved it so much. And I would say even homeschooling in that whole community, that kind of lifestyle even enhanced my love of getting out in nature and wanting to do that with my children.

Allison 8:16

So love it. That's a great, that's a great origin story. Yes, yeah, yes, and Banff is oh man, it is amazing.

SPEAKER_01 8:24

We we're trying to get back there, yeah.

Allison 8:26

I I can't I would love to go back and when we were just there like two years ago, I think, for our anniversary. And um, we went to we went to Lake Louise. Um but we actually just kind of popped in there for a quick photo up, and then we spent most of the time at Lake Um Moraine, Moraine. Is it Moraine or More?

SPEAKER_01 8:47

I think we canoeed on that one.

Allison 8:49

That's we did too. And it it was like I felt like I was just in a different, completely different world. It's interesting.

SPEAKER_01 8:56

Well, I remember pulling over to like change a diaper and thinking, how we're we're nowhere, but it looks like a national park. There's no sign, this is just the side of the road. How is it so beautiful? But yeah, it was incredible.

Allison 9:09

All right. So what's a favorite, what's a favorite travel adventure memory of yours?

SPEAKER_01 9:15

Okay, yeah. It's hard to narrow it down because every trip we've done has something incredible about it, but probably one of the very top ones was a couple years ago. We did a little bit longer trip than normal. We took two weeks in um when we were coming down through Idaho, we stopped at a hot spring. I we try to find hot springs, natural hot springs, not the kind you pay for, but yeah, natural hot springs whenever we can. It's kind of a tradition that developed. And we stopped at this hot spring called Goldbug Hot Spring in Idaho. You have to hike two miles up to get into it. And you know, as we're getting close, the kids are kind of like getting tired, and we just kept telling them it's gonna be worth it. And you get there, and the there's tons of hot springs all over the hillside. They're all beautiful, they're surrounded by flowers, views of the mountains. But the very first one we got to, you go into a cave, and then you're sitting in like a hot tub hot spring with a waterfall falling into it at the same time while you're looking out at the view. Wow. So we spent hours there. There were natural water slides, and um, we spent hours just at these hot springs in the mountainside of Idaho and then just hiked back down after. And so yeah, it was sort of it didn't cost anything. It was like you just park and hike and you just go stay there. And it was so just magical, so magical. Like you can't pictures, you know, nothing can really, you know, all the rocks were covered in moss.

Allison 10:42

It was just as people pay big money to have experiences like that have been curated, you know, not naturally formed. So that's pretty amazing.

SPEAKER_01 10:51

It was hard to believe it was real. It was it was wonderful. So that is one of our top, probably family memories from our trip doing that. Okay. All right.

Allison 11:00

Okay, so let's give me like a worst okay like a worst memory.

SPEAKER_01 11:08

I might give you two short ones, but so one of them, we were on a road trip and um we were just head, we were in southern Oregon, kind of by the desert, and we were gonna head to see some wild horses, and our car broke down. So we're also in the middle of nowhere. I had to, there was like one restaurant that was all that was there. So we managed to get, you know, two a tow truck that had to tow another truck because there's so many of us to like come get us. So it's a whole whole debacle. And we have to stay in this town, really small town in Oregon, very small. Like a lot of stuff wasn't even open because it was the middle of the week. And our hotel, like half of it had been, you know, had a fire and had caution tape around it. Like it was not. Um, and we were there for three days because it was like the timing of getting the part, you know, and our kids are really little. But the reason I tell that one is because our kids had the best time, you know, like we tried not to portray to them this is terrible, our trip's being ruined. And, you know, the hotel had two rooms. Like they didn't care if the chairs were stained. The hotel is partially burned down. They're like, this hotel is two rooms. We got our own room, you know, and we would walk, we couldn't drive anywhere. So we would just walk into town. There was like a bookstore that had the lady had animals who owned this bookstore. So there were like cats in it and dogs. And then there was a deli and we went to a couple of times, and the lady gave them cookies, free cookies after lunch. And they, my daughter was a lot younger at the time, and she was saying, I'm I want to come here for my honeymoon. Like, we can't wait to remind her, like, show her pictures of where we were. But so that was a little bit of bummer, but you know, it it worked out and God was really faithful through it. We ended up we had to postpone one of our nights, but the place we were gonna stay at had a room the next night, and that ended up being like one of our favorite stop stops. So it all worked out, but that was kind of rough. Three days sitting in a hotel with nothing to do. And um, they probably also liked it because they got to watch TV.

SPEAKER_02 13:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:12

Like, you know, I think we kept it to documentaries, but still it was exciting for them. Um and then the other one I just remember when my daughter was my youngest daughter, fifth daughter, when she was pretty little. I don't even know if she was one, and we were in Colorado. We now realized she probably had altitude sickness and she was just struggling. She hadn't really been eating or napping a lot. And it was my birthday, and we were gonna go hiking, and she'd just been having a rough time crying a lot wherever we were, and she just lost her mind, just started screaming, shrieking. And, you know, people in the parking lot are concerned, and you know, clearly we're not new parents, and people were trying to help us. So we took her, had to drive and take her to a med stop. And um, you know, she ended up being fine. They and like later that night. I have this picture of later that night where I'm like giving her a bath and she's smiling like in a bucket, and she's smiling, and like the look on my face is like just relief because it's been days of her like being so unhappy. But so that was hard. You know, you're kind of like worried about your kid, you have to stop, you know, leave your plans, what you're doing, and um dealing with the crying brave baby while you're trying to have these adventures. And so that was a rough one, but um it ended up being good, and we've been back to that same place, so we kind of redeemed it.

Allison 14:32

Wow. Well, I mean, both of those um sort of horror stories, if you will, uh, you know, they encompass two things that you do have to think about in a road trip, which is like car safety emergencies and medical emergencies. So we'll we'll touch on that a little bit later on in the episode.

SPEAKER_01 14:48

Well, and would I before I like just to end that one thing that I always tell people with these stories, because those are the kinds of stories that I think make people nervous to go, is I always say, like, I if you asked me how was the trip, I would still say amazing. You know, I never would be like, Oh, it's horrible.

Allison 15:08

So you never it would obviously it didn't make you not take away. No, I never I didn't stop. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:12

So it all the good always outweighs the difficulties.

Allison 15:17

Yeah, yeah. It's just a matter of of expectations and just kind of being prepared for whatever.

SPEAKER_01 15:23

And you build you build your muscle for that too. Like I didn't even mention our last trip, and we had three car situations on our last trip, but it's like whatever, that was fine.

Allison 15:32

You're so resilient now, it's not a problem. Exactly, yeah. Okay, well, first before we dive in too deep, let's do some definitions here. What constitutes a road trip? Would you say so?

SPEAKER_01 15:45

I would say that a road trip is just any trip that involves traveling in your vehicle to get there. Um, so that might mean that you have one destination in mind, you're trying to get to it, and maybe you make some fun stops along the way. Um and it so it doesn't necessarily have to be very far away. It could be close by. We've done that some years when we had really little babies, stayed closer. But for our family, that means we're going to primarily outdoor locations, most of which we haven't been to before. We're exploring something new. Um, and we usually go for about a whole week, maybe two weeks at the most. And we for our family that where there's gonna be an venture involved, maybe hiking, camping, outdoor excursions, and we use a lot of national parks to help us with our road trip.

Allison 16:31

Okay. So that's good definition. Um, so and it doesn't have to be in the summer, but the timing of this is that it's coming, this is gonna come out at the end near the end of May.

SPEAKER_01 16:42

Yeah.

Allison 16:43

And a lot of people, not everybody um in the audience homeschools and has the flexibility to travel whenever. I would say what we're gonna talk about today could apply to any time of the year you want to take a road trip. But we're specifically sort of looking towards that, you know, classic summer road trip for our discussion today. So why? Why is it a good idea to take a summer road trip?

SPEAKER_01 17:03

I think that the memories and experiences that you have on a road trip, whether they're good or bad, are really bonding for your family. Um, it kind of creates this like shared culture with your family, these memories that you have together. You're together 24-7 when you're doing this as well. So um that obviously can be challenging, but it also is really good, especially when you do it for more than one day. It gets better every day. So um, you're doing these exciting special things together, and all these, you'll have all these remember when stories. Like, so that's that's one piece of it. The other piece would I would say is just how beneficial it is for us to be outdoors and to be seeing places that are different, places that are beautiful, kind of getting away from stress or what we think is normal, and just kind of you get a little bit outside of your worries or the world or all of that. And you kind of get also reminded just how great God is when you see everything He's made.

Allison 18:10

Yeah, you definitely just getting into a different environment than what you're used to, like when we went to Canada. I that's completely different from where I live here in South Texas. Yeah. Um in so many ways.

unknown 18:26

Yeah.

Allison 18:27

But it really does just shift your perspective. We talked a little bit about this last year um at when I talked with Jessica Fisher about international travel. And it's kind of similar. It's you get out of your rhythm, you get out of your little bubble of existence, and you enter into somebody else's experience, a different culture, a different environment. And um it can really be helpful to shift your mindset. Um matter what you're bringing to the table on that trip, whether you're stressed about something going on at work or you're stressed about something going on in the family, it can really be helpful to kind of reset, I think.

SPEAKER_01 19:00

Definitely. And then it's a little usually more cost effective for it, can be more manageable, especially if you, like I said, you don't have to go far. So you can make it less expensive, which can be really helpful. Um, yeah, and then there's educational benefits like the amount of history and science, geography, all of this that you can learn with your kids. I I kind of count it, I count those weeks as school. Like I don't do school on the trip. I sometimes do it beforehand. We do road trip school before we go, but it's very light. And but I still count it because they're learning so much the whole entire time that we're on this trip. Um so those are part of our school weeks. And then I also think it's very, it's a good cultural experience because you do see how different people live. Um you get to see like maybe more poverty, or um, I mean, we've driven through Navajo reservations and you get to learn about history and different groups of people. And then just be especially because we go to national parks, you meet so many international people as well and talk to them. So you you really get a lot of exposure that I think maybe people would be surprised that you get in America. Um and coming from we're coming from California, I think it's really good for us to get out and be reminded that like the rest of the world does things differently than like maybe where we're from. You know, there's a lot of different ways to do life. Yeah, it's not just this way. And um, I still remember the first time my kid saw someone like with an open carry, like they had a gun, and they're yeah, we're not in California anymore. Like you can do that other places, like the laws, you know, you start talking about laws, state states have different laws, so you're learning so much. And absolutely just funny.

Allison 20:47

Yeah, what's the farthest you guys have gone from from home?

SPEAKER_01 20:51

Well, north we've gone to as with driving, just like northern Washington, and then going east. I think the furthest we've gone is um Montana.

Allison 21:01

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 21:02

So Montana and Colorado are kind of the farthest, mostly because we usually do a 10-day trip. And then this summer we will be going to South and North Dakota. So that will be the farthest that we travel.

Allison 21:15

Any plans to ever do like a full cross country and go to the East?

SPEAKER_01 21:19

We are hoping to do it before our oldest is 18, which we only have four years. So we're gonna have to figure that out with work. My the another reason I like road trips, my husband doesn't have a sort of job where like he can build up time off or things like that. So we're really limited in the time. So we're we've talked about it and we need to work out the timing, but we would love to go and do like an East Coast US history sort of um trip for sure. So we've kind of made a loose plan of let's say hypothetically, our oldest daughter could only do four more trips with us. Like, what are our priorities?

Allison 21:54

Yeah, no, that's a great way to do that.

SPEAKER_01 21:55

And then hopefully she'll get to keep coming. We're like, you can come forever, even when you're married. Yeah. So caravan.

Allison 22:02

Family caravan.

SPEAKER_01 22:03

Exactly. Yeah. That would be the dream. So um we would love that. That we'll see. But okay.

Allison 22:10

All right.

SPEAKER_01 22:11

I have friends that are doing that this summer, and then I just live vicariously through them and help them out their trips.

Allison 22:16

And learn from them. Like they can give you all the what to do and what not to do. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:19

And then I can be prepared.

Allison 22:21

Exactly. That would be very cool. I think it would present lots of unique challenges and opportunities to do a full cross-country trip like that.

SPEAKER_01 22:30

My brother actually did that um a couple summers ago because he's a pastor, so he had a sabbatical. And it was really special for their family. Really awesome experience. And yeah.

Allison 22:42

Yeah, I think it's nice. If I mean if you can take like several weeks to do that, that that would really be ideal. Yeah, it would. Because there's just so much you would want to stop at and see along the way.

SPEAKER_01 22:54

That's the hardest part with planning a road trip.

Allison 22:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:56

So you're like, oh, we just need to live on the road now. Exactly. We're never coming back.

Allison 23:01

Well, you've mentioned a lot about national parks already. So why are national parks such a great destination for summer family road trips?

SPEAKER_01 23:07

I think like especially because I grew up going to national parks, so it was on my mind. And then if you're starting out planning on your own, it's a great way to start because the resources are kind of already there and the location's already there. So you automatically have a place you know you want to go. Like, well, let's go to this national park. And you're not most likely not going to be disappointed because most national parks just have so much beauty and they're they're huge. So there's a lot to do there. Um, but then they also have resources, so it might feel safer. Um, sometimes they have hotels, they have campgrounds, they'll have like cabins, even there's food, there's emergency services, there's, you know, you're gonna have cell phone service and um all of that. So it and it makes it easier to plan your trip. You might feel more comfortable. There, you know, there's other people, you're not just like in the wilderness of constantly afraid of being attacked by an animal or something, but you still can see wildlife. And um, there's they also have cool programs sometimes, like ranger programs and things like that that you can get your kids in, or they do like junior ranger stuff your kids can do, and um lots of like I've mentioned before, lots of multicultural opportunities. Like you were definitely hearing many languages, and um that's kind of neat because people tend to go to national parks, so you get a lot of other people. Um, and I just I think the opportunities there are they're really like endless. They're so you can hike really long, you can hike short, you can hang out somewhere by water, or you can do like a big adventure. Like they have sort of everything depending on what you would prefer. So you can kind of customize your adventure based on your preferences.

Allison 24:53

Are most of the resources for national parks easily accessible online, or do you would you recommend like calling the park and saying, hey, this is what I'm trying to accomplish?

SPEAKER_01 25:01

I think you could find a lot online. And then I think beyond that, you can find other people. You know, there's bloggers and people who go who will share their secrets and tips, and that way you can find maybe like if say you want to go to Yosemite, that's the closest one to us. It can be so busy. Like we we went recently where it was almost not fun because it would we went at a really bad time, like a holiday. And but we know a couple spots there where we went and there was zero people, and we you know, even though and so if you find other people online who are experienced, you can there's just a so there's even resources beyond just the park themselves, which makes it easier to plan around versus a random mountain range or something.

Allison 25:46

Right. Do you guys have your national park passport?

SPEAKER_01 25:49

Um, well, this year and next year we have a fourth grader. So we you get in for free when you have a fourth grader. Oh, nice. Um, and so we don't we don't do like this passport stamps, but we do have stickers. And every trip we go on, we have like a thing we put on top of our truck that holds a bunch of our camping gear, and every time we finish, we put stickers for whatever national park we've been to. Thank god. Uh up to like 19 or something like that. So we we just this last weekend went to the national park that's closest to us, which we had never been to. So it was sort of funny.

Allison 26:22

Well, that's cool. That's a good idea.

SPEAKER_01 26:24

So we checked that one off.

Allison 26:25

We're gonna add our sticker, but yeah, we um there's so many fun ways to mark like going to visit all the all the parks. And you know, the passport book is you can get the little book, it looks like the passport, it's the size of a passport, and every national park has a stamp for the audience. Um if you're not familiar with that, they they will stamp your little passport and that they're all unique to the to the park itself. Yeah, they're really cool. And so then you could, especially if you're into like journaling and that kind of thing, you know, you could bring your journal and have them stamp your journal. Yeah. Um my kids have done the like junior ranger.

SPEAKER_01 27:00

They do junior ranger and they get the pins. So they get a pin everywhere they go. And um, you know, I'm not I haven't made some sort of cool thing out of it. My kids lose them, you know, at some point. But I've seen so many neat things. People will like cross-stitch where they've been, you know, make a quilt. They do journals, and yeah, you can get giant maps where you scratch it off. And there's a lot of cool ways to kind of commemorate it as part of your family, you know, tradition.

Allison 27:26

So that's so fun. I love that. Um, okay, let's talk about camping. Why is camping a great option for family road trips?

SPEAKER_01 27:37

Uh, I'm fresh off camping this last weekend and with people who hadn't camped before either. So I understand it's not something that everyone's used to. I grew up camping even, even not on our road trips really, but I camped every summer um at like a lake. However, it was California and it was always warm. So our first camping experiences ourselves in the mountains, we were like severely unprepared for the cold at night. So I've had we have had to learn a lot. We've even been on a trip where we had to go into town and buy different sleeping bags for our children. So I realize that it isn't everyone's, you know, go-to, but I definitely encourage people to do it. Um it is way cheaper. So you can, you know, campgrounds can be like $10, $20, you know, sometimes they're a little more expensive because you can find campgrounds that have a lot of amenities. There are campgrounds that have, you know, showers and like a pool. And so you can do that, but they're still gonna be less expensive than a hotel, especially if you start if you have a family where you can't fit in one room at some point. Um, they're really easy to find, they're everywhere, because especially since there are private and public ones. Um, so that makes it nice. You can find them anywhere along your route. You're not kind of stuck to staying in towns. So it frees up your like planning your driving distances and where you want to go. Um, also, just the solitude and the privacy and the peacefulness, like of not having road noise, really being more immersed in nature. Like you wake up and you are going outside immediately, and you don't go inside until you're asleep. And I just think that that's really good for us. Um, it's a really neat experience. And I think it's also really helpful when you have children. So when, especially when I had little kids, the thought of trying to wrangle all the kids in a hotel room and keep them quiet while we took an hour to pack up and get ready, it just sounds like torture. But when we're camping and um you're packing up, the kids are just playing with pine cones. Yeah, you know, they're completely occupied. Like they're just they don't even want to leave. They're like, we're building our ferry house right now. We can't go. Well, you know, so it's fine. You know, I think that they actually behave better, like you have less behavior issues when you're outdoors doing that because there's there's endless things for them to do and play with. Um, so that is way less stressful. Personally, I feel like it's way less stressful. Um, I also think it helps kids learn more perseverance and and like gratitude, and then a lot of practical skills like you know, fire safety and setting up a tent and just cooking outdoors and all these different things that they learn by being out there and awareness of things. Um, and then it just it also I think it enhances the family togetherness, the the helpfulness. You're not you're not gonna be distracted by like a TV in a hotel room, or you know, that's I don't know. It's just a different, it's very different. You're sitting around a campfire or something, you're looking at the stars at night, you're you know, listening to a river, you're oh our last trip this last weekend, raccoons were walking through our campsite, which was not of course, but it's like an experience that you're like, whoa, that just happened. And um yeah, and if you can, I would also say like if you want to get started with it, go with friends. And then there's that aspect of if if you go with someone else when you're camping, it kind of eases the the burden or the introduction, or you maybe you feel safer if you're scared about like nervous about it, or if it scares you to be, you know, out camping. So um yeah, I think it's great. I love it. It but it can be hard, you know, sleeping and you might not get as good a sleep. There are gonna be so you had to kind of weigh like, is it worth this the sacrifices for me to have this experience or to give this experience to my kids? Yeah, so that they can maybe then take it and run with it.

Allison 31:41

Yeah. There's definitely um like tricks of the trade, there's things that you learn along the way with every camping trip. We would improve our setup a little bit better. We're we are camper, we are trailer campers now, but for most of our married life when we had kids at home, we were tank campers because we did scouts. We had three boys, so we did scouts.

SPEAKER_02 32:01

Oh fun.

Allison 32:01

Um, and so that's how we really got into camping and learned was through our experience with scouts. And so every, you know, every time you figure out, okay, especially as we got older, yeah, it's like, okay, well, sleeping on the ground does not really feel that great. So, you know, we figured out air mattresses or like cots or different hacks and tricks that help us just make it a little bit more comfortable for you. So I recommend what you said. Camping with friends is absolutely a good idea. If you've never camped before, if you're a beginner, find a friend who has camped. Yes, yes, and go with them. Definitely, and just learn, you know, just learn from that experience. They'll be able to help you set your tent up and help you do all the things that you're just not sure what to do. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:52

So, and there's so many ways to make it easier, and especially nowadays, I think there's so many cool resources to. I mean, like our tent, we have this huge tent, but you pop it up, it takes like one minute. Like, absolutely. The kids like love showing off when we roll up to a place and invite roll up to the campsite, they're like, All these people around us are gonna be amazed because they're gonna have our campsite set up so fast, and it's like a goal to see how quick they can do it. But yeah, you learn so much the more you do it, and which then makes it easier. Like, I bring so much less stuff now, and yeah, I you know, we the trip we did this weekend was so close by that I barely even thought about it beforehand because I'm like, just we'll be fine, you know, just throw that in and it's great. And so you do like build that muscle, and it gets a lot easier. You learn a lot.

Allison 33:40

Yeah, you really do. We actually camped on our honeymoon, believe it or not. Um we were we were young and had zero money, so we went camping on our honeymoon, and um, it was quite the experience. I need to write about it, I think. You should it's a really funny story, it's just all sorts of things happened. Um, it poured down rain. We had to break camp in the rain in North Georgia with like red clay mud. Oh my goodness. And we and then our next stop, our last night of our honeymoon was the treat, and we were going to the Marriott in downtown Atlanta. And here we traipsed into the Marriott, and we are covered in red mud. It's yeah, and it was the whole thing. I'm gonna have to write about that. But anyway, I still love camping. I recommend camping for everybody, I think it's just so fun. Yeah, and it is way cheaper, it's so much cheaper, so much cheaper.

SPEAKER_01 34:30

It makes sense. Especially if you have a big family. Yeah, if you have a big family, and um, and we'll probably talk about maybe well, there's other things you can do besides camping, and maybe I can mention it now because we do since we used to only camp just because definitely all we could afford, and I don't know what I was used to, and we were just getting into the planning of road trips and it we would camp every night, even if we were staying somewhere for one night, we would like do a tent. And then I started to realize like you can find Airbnbs and hip camps, which sounds expensive, but coming from California, it's um it I started to realize like you can find all these places and they are so inexpensive. Um and it's like camping, but maybe it's already set up, like it's a big canvas tent, it's got a mat rolled out inside with some cute solar lights, it has a fire pit, there's a bathroom right here, and all you do is bring your stuff in. So you don't have to set up a tent or you know, worry about any of that stuff. There's a lot of things for you. Or like we've stayed in a yurt, we've stayed in a cabin, we've stayed in a teepee where I mean one of the nicest places I've ever stayed in my life is a teepee in Montana. And it's where it was, and it was a hundred dollars for our entire family, you know, and it was like the fanciest inside, you know, you make your coffee in there, and there was a whole building we could use. Like I think it was part of their basement that was beautiful, that had showers and stove, and it, you know, and we still got to wake up and just you know, drink coffee looking at the continental divide with horses right next to us. So, but that was, you know, you find you can find all these amazing spots that are really inexpensive, that feel like camping, that are pretty remote. Um, and they're but they're still inexpensive compared to a hotel. Like I could never find a hotel that inexpensive. And it would, if I did, it's it would not be nice, would not be that nice. So the hip camp and Airbnb route, I think I had avoided it thinking, well, Airbnbs are expensive. That's like a house in a town or something. And I didn't realize people were like, hey, if this yurt up on the mountain in the middle of nowhere, and I put it on Airbnb. I was like, this is amazing. Like, so we've stayed at some really unique places like that, which also helps if you're trying to plan your trip and you need to stay in a certain location. Yeah, maybe you can't find a campground, but you still want, but you don't want to be in a town or a hotel is too expensive. So I it's kind of glamping, maybe is what yeah.

Allison 36:53

Is that what hip camp is that because I'm not familiar with the variety is so different.

SPEAKER_01 36:57

A hip camp could be literally a piece of dirt, and someone's like, you come boondock here and you just park here and then you leave in the morning, or it can be like we've stayed in, you know, a yurt with that has like a nice bathroom and a trampoline outside and be nice. So the variety, I think that's what's cool about it, is there's um so much variety with the the hip camp and Airbnb. Um, so you can kind of look and see. But sometimes the campsites are they're cheaper, they might just be on someone's land. It's like okay, I've got this little porter party area set up and a little outdoor shower, and there's a spot for your tent, and it's ten dollars. You're like, okay.

Allison 37:40

Awesome. Yeah, and that's such a good um, like in between. If if you're new to this and you just like doing the camping on your own, buying the tent, doing all that, that just seems so overwhelming. You could do this as a you could do it all the way across America. Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_01 37:56

Yeah, it is, it's a great way, and I really enjoy it. Some of our favorite places we've stayed. Um, sometimes it can even be a little more private because instead of being at a campground, you're on somebody's private with a lot of people, you're on someone's private property, and then there's safety because it's like someone's property. Um, but you get this whole private um area. And sometimes it's somewhere cool. Like we've stayed places where people give us a tour of their farm or whatever it is. Yeah. And um, so which again, you meet people and yeah, it's like it's a different kind of experience, but yeah, that's another way to like camp and and maybe see like I like this. I like being outdoors, I like sitting up at the fire at night when the kids are in the tent. I like, you know, I think this is worth it. Let's maybe try to keep doing this or let's let's maybe get into it a little more. We can maybe go the next step, you know.

Allison 38:42

Yes, I love that idea. And that is just I who who knew that you could get a yurt off of Airbnb? I had no idea. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:49

Oh, I we've stayed in some pretty cool yurt yurts.

Allison 38:52

Okay. So everybody, there's your assignment. Go find a yurt. Um, okay. Well, that covers lodging pretty well. So let's let's talk a little bit more about the how-tos of actually planning a road trip. So, how do you choose your destination and your route?

SPEAKER_01 39:07

Yeah, and I think that's probably the hardest part is picking because there's so many wonderful places. So that's one of the reasons I've liked doing the national parks, because we can say, well, we haven't been to this one, and it's one we really want to go to. Um, so for example, one year my husband he had always wanted to see the Grand Canyon, and we'd never been there. I wasn't really interested in the Grand Canyon because my mind says desert, like that must be ugly. But I'm thinking of like probably like the Californian desert. So, um, so that was our starting point. And we're like, okay, well, that is in this location. So what else is close by? And then you in Utah, you can get to a lot of parks. They call them like the Mighty Five, uh, very easily. They're all within maybe two hours of each other. So we were able to plan a whole road trip based off of this one location my husband was really interested in seeing. And it ended up being one of our best trips ever. But um, and I actually loved the desert. So, but so choosing one destination like that to kind of be a starting point can be really helpful. And maybe in that case, it was our first stop. A lot of times we have a more this is our main place we want to get to, and then we're gonna maybe stay there a couple days, or maybe a region, like we want to explore. Let's say if someone wanted to explore the Oregon coast or you wanted to explore like the Minnesota lakes, like there's regions that you could pick as well. And then that just gives you a starting place so you can see, well, how long will it take to get there? And then what along the way would be worth stopping, or would we like to see so that we know how to break it up if it's far. So, like we're going to um South Dakota and North Dakota as our like main place this summer, but we obviously have to drive through numerous states to get there. So you you get like a goal and then you can shape everything around that goal. And I think that helps it. Otherwise, it's it is kind of endless. There's endless places you could go. So you gotta pick something like where, yeah, where do we wanna what do we want to see? You know, do we want mountains or do we want desert? Do we want lakes or do we want, you know, ocean? So pick something to define the trip first.

Allison 41:19

Yeah. Oh, that's a great way to think about it. Pick something to define the trip, like a central point or a central region.

SPEAKER_01 41:25

Yeah, or a goal or whatever it is that you know something. Yeah, it might be a goal.

Allison 41:28

You might want to climb a particular mountain or something.

SPEAKER_01 41:32

Yeah, or something you studied in history, like we want to, or you know, some or or nature with your kids. You're like, we want to experience this thing, you know. Or yeah, yeah.

Allison 41:43

That's great. And I love what you said earlier about you weren't thinking about the Grand Canyon, you were like, oh, desert, and what you had in mind was not actually what it ended up being. So it's just thinking a little bit outside the box and and not setting expectations like, oh, I don't think I'm going to like that. Because all of these places, when we're talking about national parks, they're national parks for a reason. Like they're beautiful, they are they have been preserved for a reason as a national park. So there's going to be beauty there, and more than likely, it's not what you expect.

SPEAKER_01 42:18

Yeah. And I think that's valuable too for for kids and adults, but just to learn to see the beauty and find the beauty, you know, like to me, in like the desert, bad, ugly, like who would want to go there, you know, because I'm but I'm only thinking about that. But then when you're actually there and you're seeing it up close and you're experiencing it, you get to see like what is beautiful about it. And I think that's great. I mean, I where I live now is very different than where I grew up to, and I had to do that as an adult just with where I live, like find the beauty here because I'm accustomed to a different type of beauty, and I'm judging everything based on that. So, like that desert trip, I think was really helpful for me because I was so amazed and I loved every second of everything I saw. And, you know, it wasn't my personal preference of oh, we're up in the mountains, there's like a glacier above me, and you know, and a river going by. But, you know, we woke up and we watched the sunrise over Monument Valley on like Navajo land one morning, and there's just that's amazing. It was so beautiful. Um, and I think that that was a cool experience for me. And then I like, I like giving that to my kids too, like so they can see. I mean, who knows where they'll end up? They could end up living somewhere that's not their first choice. And to have had this experience of like, I know I can find beauty here and I can find something amazing, and um, I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna explore and find what's good about where I am. I think that's a good skill.

Allison 43:46

Uh oh, absolutely, 100%. All right, let's talk money for a minute. Okay. Um, budgeting. How do you figure up your cost and where can we save money and what should we splurge on? What's worth the splurge when it comes to these trips?

SPEAKER_01 44:00

Yeah. I mean, every family's probably gonna have their different priorities or preferences, but obviously lodging and gas are the most expensive, where this is not something we would normally be spending money on if we were just staying at home. So we will have to think about gas, how many miles you go. For us, it's like it's kind of funny because for us, gas is we're using more of it, but it's so much cheaper than where we live.

Allison 44:24

So well, that's true.

SPEAKER_01 44:26

For us, it's fun when we go to the gas.

Allison 44:28

As soon as you leave California, you're like, this is great.

SPEAKER_01 44:30

We're like, wow, it's amazing. Let's keep going. Um but yeah, and and then lodging, we obviously we talked about how to keep that lower so it's not excessive. Um, and then food, you're gonna you eat anyway. So if you can cook, that's really helpful. And when you're camping, you can obviously cook, but even like the Airbnb hip camp, a lot of them will have a kitchen, a stove. So you can cut down on that. And then there's ways to do mostly your own food too. Um, like I had a trip one year, I think it was when I'd had my third daughter, and we were doing an easier trip. We stayed in California, and I told my husband, I'd like to not bring a stove. And so what we did was we did all the breakfasts and lunches with, you know, yogurt, sandwiches, anything that you didn't have to cook, and then we would get like a pizza and eat it at our campsite or something. We just kind of did an easier trip. So there were ways where we were able to still be really um like budget friendly with our food, but make it so that we could afford to do some dinners out. Yeah. Um, that were easier, or like charcuterie style dinners. So um there's a lot. So food you can really, you know, I look up grocery stores, I find the budget ones along the way if I need to shop, and I just kind of plan our meals based on where we're going and what we're doing and keep it simple so that so we're not eating out all the time. If you were eating out all the time, that would blow your budget for sure. But we do try to make it so that we can go to a couple fun places to eat um on the trip, or maybe like a really cool coffee shop that's somewhere. Um, because you you can find some really unique places and places with really awesome views that are fun, really fun to eat at and experience. So we try to work a couple in, but when we're you know cooking ourselves the rest of the time, it makes that possible.

Allison 46:21

So that's a big one.

SPEAKER_01 46:23

And then um the thing that the park entrance fees I've sort of briefly talked about, but if you have a fourth grader, you can go to for free to every national park. Um, and then if you don't, you can get like an if you're gonna go to more than two national parks, you get an annual pass and it's way cheaper. Okay. So that helps save money as well. Um, and there's a whole website for which I can give you for the fourth grade thing for families. Um, and then we talked about camping, but also activity. So I would say for us, we when we camp and we do things less expensive, like I might even be thinking, ooh, it'd be nice to stay in an Airbnb here, but I really want to do this activity. So if we camp instead, you know, we can do this activity. So we've done like a jet boat ride and we've done um just some cool like a train ride or something in the place. We did some gold mining in Colorado summer where you like go in a mine and mine for gold. So we'll we try to do maybe one experience on each trip if we can. Like we might whitewater raft in the Tetons this summer. So nice. Um, but if we we try to just pick one, like what would be really awesome? One thing we can do, and it's kind of our splurge. Last summer, I actually had grandparents like gift my husband a birthday present for part of the trip. And so he took one kid and they went ATVing up in the mountains in Colorado, and it was for his birthday, but like so I worked that out as like a gift so that he could do something extra special, and um, so we try to pick something like that, and I think that's worth the money to if you can save on other things that then you can have this kind of grand experience. Um, we did a fly fishing, like a guided fly fishing one time. So I think that's really fun. And but it's also nice because we're not doing like an experience every day. We have a lot of freedom of just enjoying nature, hiking, swimming, playing, all that, obviously driving, and then um, and then we'll add in something like that on the trip that is maybe a little more special or okay.

Allison 48:41

Those are great, those are really great tips. Um yeah, the cooking on your own, I know is so helpful. And and to think the way that you described it, like it doesn't mean you have to lug a stove with you and you know, cook everything hot. You can do uh like Jessica Fisher talks about grocery store picnics, like go to the grocery store, just grab what you need to put together a little picnic that you can just sit and sit on the on the ground out in the park and look at the view and enjoy some cold cuts and some bread or something, you know.

SPEAKER_01 49:13

And sometimes that ends up being like a great that food was so good, you know, because of where you are and what you're experiencing, yeah.

Allison 49:21

Yeah, and it was like baloney or something, you know.

SPEAKER_01 49:24

Yeah, exactly. Like I think that where you are changes so many much of what you're experiencing, like even the whole like going with little kids and all the the you know, the hardships. I would always tell people, they're like, How do you do it with little kids? And I'd say, Well, I can change a diaper at home, or I can change it like looking at this mountain range. So I'm gonna take the mountain range, or I can deal with the tantrum staring at my like dirty house, or I can deal with the tantrum looking at this view, and I think I'll take the view, you know. Exactly. So I think this the place you are almost balances out some of the difficulties where they it's like rose-colored glasses. You're like, everything's fine. It's fine.

Allison 50:02

Yeah, look where we are. Exactly. I love that. That's a great perspective. That's a great perspective. Okay, so let's talk car travel tips. Um how do you make those long hours in the car not drive everybody crazy without putting a screen in front of everybody's face? Um and let's talk about that. Let's talk a little bit about you know, time when's the best time to travel at night or during the day, and maybe some car safety tips.

SPEAKER_01 50:30

Sure. Okay, so yeah, we our car doesn't even have like a DVD thing. We did have a few years where we had one and we would like limit it to we're driving eight hours so you guys can watch like one thing. Or if I had a baby that needed to take a nap and I in the car and I wanted it really quiet, and then we didn't have a car that had that anymore. So even that went out the window. Um, and no one has ever had like a personal device or anything like that in our car. So audiobooks for sure. Like if I want my children to be quiet, I just keep an audiobook on. Yeah. And sometimes you can work it out in your vehicle. I'm not super tech savvy, but you can have like the speakers in the back on and not the ones up front. So you and your husband could still talk or something. Um, or my husband and I have done like our own headphones that we share while the kids listen to something else. You can even bring a speaker in the car and like Bluetooth to your speaker if you need to. But audiobooks are great. And I I actually think that adds to the whole shared experience because you a lot of times you don't get to read the same book with your with dad that you're reading as a family, or or even kids are reading different books, but you're all listening to it together, especially if it's funny or um. Yes, we do that a lot. So we're actually gonna go and stay on the Laura Ingalls Wilder like homestead this summer. We're gonna sleep in a covered wagon on our property. And um, so we're gonna listen to the little house books again, you know. At this point, the little girls haven't heard it, probably they don't remember it. And so we're gonna listen to those and then we're gonna stay there. And that's really fun. So definitely audiobooks. It that always helps. And um then we do playlists and sing alongs as the kids got older and started being more into music. That's fun for them because then they're invested in like who we're listening to, they like the songs. Um, you can do car games. We have some card like decks of cards where you can play car games. Some of them are just question games, some of them are activities. I've definitely printed out games for them, like road trip bingo, things like that for them to do. Um I usually, it's kind of tradition at this point. Even my older daughters still expect me to buy them like a they make these. I think Usborn makes these sticker books, but they're reusable. Like you can take the stickers off and re put them on. And there's like a farm theme or like, you know, dress people up theme or whatever. So I've I get them each like a big sticker book. They have ones that also are kind of like a puzzle made out of stickers, and you have to match them. So activities like that that they can do um in the car. I've had those drawing boards, and I I don't know what they're called, but they're kind of where you dry, draw on them and then you just erase um with a one button. So it's not actually like a screen. So I've bought them those before, they're really inexpensive, and they'll play Pictionary together, they'll they'll do different activities with that because you can just draw and erase it and draw again. You don't have to bring a lot of paper. But they do usually have like a special road trip notebook, and I'll get some road trip activity books that have, you know, crosswords and different things like that. And um you can get stuff that's related to where you're going. I'll sometimes print out things from where we're going about maybe the state, and it has, you know, like a coloring sheet. It's got the state flower and the state bird, and I'll have those ready for them. Um, and then when they were little, I would let them bring a couple like small little animals or little things that they could kind of still play with each other or little puppets or things like that if they wanted to kind of play and do imaginative play. But there's also a lot to see out the window.

Allison 54:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 54:10

And so um, yeah, I think all of those things like are really good. Obviously, people still get cranky sometimes, but the what we've noticed, because now my oldest daughter is almost 14. So she's done this since she was born, and that every road trip gets easier and they get so much better at being in the car together. And it it just gets more and more enjoyable. You're like, I'm not climbing in the back anymore to pick up a pacifier while pregnant, you know, striving to climb over the seats or think, you know, sitting between sitting on a child or something, sitting in between them, like stop, you know, like control yourselves like while we're driving, that kind of stuff. There was some of that here and there, like training, it's training just like anything else. And um, but they now it's like we don't really think about it. It's you know, obviously things still happen or come up, but it's enjoyable and um it gets easier over time. And we we will drive a nine-hour, 10-hour stretch. Like, just be like, it'll be fine.

Allison 55:12

So do you drive during the day or at night?

SPEAKER_01 55:14

Yes. So we do the day because I if we ever are late and it gets dark, I get really sad because I know I'm missing things. So we try to see what's up. Yeah, like when our car breaks down and then we like our delayed. I'm like, I know we're passing something beautiful and I can't see it. So we definitely do the daytime and um we try to limit the long chunks. So because of where we're coming from, usually our really long chunk of driving is the very beginning and the very end. And then every once in a while there'll be like a longer chunk in between. I tried to spread those out so that it's not like multiple days in a row you're doing really we'll do two long days in a row because we're trying to get to a certain spot, but like you know, um, and the kids are older, so it's like that's fine, they can handle that, no big deal. But you make you plan little, you can plan little stops along the way, like get out, run around at this spot, or hear something cool to see as we're driving, and to break it up, and that's helpful as well. But yeah, daytime driving I think is safer and more fun.

Allison 56:18

So, yeah, I agree. Um, how about safety? Like just being prepared. You know, you've already shared a story about breaking down and unexpectedly. So, what are some car safety and preparation tips?

SPEAKER_01 56:30

Yeah, well, we I mean, always you definitely want to have your spare tire because that's probably like the most common thing you're gonna have. We like we had had a tire pop on our last trip. Um, and that we had to change on the side of the road and we just drove home on our spare. But um, and so having that, having some general tools, things like that in your car for small things um is really helpful. If you have like even everywhere rural we've been, like roadside assistance has still been something we were able to use. Um, and that helped. I my husband works on cars.

unknown 57:05

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 57:05

So I have an advantage. So this last summer, for example, uh right as we were leaving Rocky Mountain National Park, our uh chipmunk was in our engine and met his end, but also threw a belt off of our car. And so we just borrowed a few tools from the park ranger. So that's another like you can ask people. Um, and a lot of times you're trap when you're traveling, especially in a national park, there's gonna be some person in your campsite who knows what to do. So definitely like check around, ask people, but bring what you can for what you're able to do for small things, and then um usually there's gonna be someone close by who can help you. Even national parks have like they will have people who that's what they do. That's their job is like to come help people with their vehicles and things like that. Um, or there's like emergency companies that can help as well. So definitely bring that, and then you want to have your basics of like, you know, making sure your water levels are good, your oil levels are good. You can bring all that stuff in your car so that if you're out somewhere and you're like, oh no, you know, we've got a something going on or a leak, you can at least get where you need to go before anything bad happens. So I would definitely like read up a little bit and have whatever basics you can have that wouldn't require a mechanic, you know, to at least get you to a place. You're like, okay, well, we can put the spirit on, we can get to the tire shop, we can put the you know, things like that, and then someone will take care of us or we can yeah, and hopefully it's nothing worse than that.

Allison 58:37

It's probably a good idea to just go ahead. If you're gonna be doing a big road trip, get get your car tuned up, like take it in, make sure the tires don't have rotating, you know, make sure your oil has been changed recently. Yeah, yeah. Just have have a have your mechanic give it once over before you're gonna take it on a trip.

SPEAKER_01 58:53

Because then you can take care of any like issues that maybe even if they weren't gonna cause you a problem driving around town would potentially be a problem like on a on a long trip. So, especially if you're going a lot of miles, you might be thinking, Well, I don't need an oil change yet, but if you're gonna drive 3,000 miles, exactly, you might really need one part way through. So just do it beforehand. So I think a little prep work would also be helpful.

Allison 59:16

Yes, yes, and I always tell people, bring a map, like yeah, bring a map, like have a roadmap in your car.

SPEAKER_01 59:24

I used to print mine out like the section we were going on. I yeah, and because you can't rely on your phone or your phone battery, you just don't know. So I would just print out each day where we were going with all the directions written down, um, so that I always had it, even if I didn't end up using it, and then I would know where to go. But yeah, an actual map too, in case you get lost and you're not on the route you were supposed to be on, but you can then find it.

Allison 59:50

Like an atlas, like a general road atlas for for the US would be helpful. Um, yeah, I have one and I keep it in my car all the time. So yeah, that used to be standard procedure before things. Yeah, before it was all digital.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:03

Yeah, yeah. I think you can go to AAA and get them for the states you're going to. I think so. So then you can get smaller ones if you want it that are specific and maybe more detailed to the exact region you're going so that you could just have them in your glove box or yeah as a as a safety.

Allison 1:00:20

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:20

Then you can teach your kids to read maps and call it like geography and put it on your check it off your curriculum. They can if you're homeschooling. Yeah.

Allison 1:00:31

Exactly. Um, okay, so that's car travel and and we talked about lodging, we talked about food. I think we've covered everything. So was there any other final story you wanted to share or tip or pointer about summer road trips?

SPEAKER_01 1:00:46

Yeah, I think that I just I would say, I know that, you know, not everyone, maybe this is their normal thing they would think of doing, or it doesn't sound fun to them to be outdoors as much. But I think a lot of that just sometimes is what we're used to and maybe like fear or nervousness about something you haven't experienced. But I would highly encourage people to try some version of it. I think it's just really life-giving. And um, the experiences, like when I look back at pictures or videos and just remember or we start talking about it as a family, like, remember that time, remember that time. I am so amazed at like the number of experiences we have. I mean, you think like, oh, it's just 10 days once every summer. That's not even that much. Like, you know, it's not a huge big trip. You didn't go to Europe, you didn't do something, which is would be amazing. We would love to do that, but you just were home, or you just went three hours from home. But the experiences we've had are so incredible. And the stories that we've gathered from them are just they're so special. And I think that there's that that family side of it. I think it's been really beautiful for our family to have that together and the way it still kind of bonds us, and even makes us, even when we're home, be more adventurous and go outdoors more. And um just watching my kids the way they can play and the things that they can do outdoors and what they're interested in. And I I think that those trips have really shaped them a lot in that way. Um, appreciating beauty and and just being outdoors. Um, and then just spiritually, I think that there's something I mean, I can remember as a kid doing those trips. I I only had brothers and I was very, I kept a lot like in my mind. I didn't talk a lot about everything I was thinking, but I can remember being on those trips and just feeling like I don't, I don't ever feel as close to God as I do when I'm like out here sitting by this waterfall. You know, like there's just something where and so I think part of me wanted to give that to my kids. Like, I want you to not, I want you to see God. And you cannot like you cannot look at this, what we're looking at, and not think about him. And just even to look at it, like you might have whatever problems in your life, and then you're looking at the Teton Mountain range and you're thinking, why was I worried? Like he made this, you know. So I think that those experiences, like you you put it all together, and there's the difficulties and there's this, but all those experiences, because they're spiritual and they're emotional, they're so deep and beautiful that it really trumps everything else. And um, so I yeah, it like makes me emotional when I think back and look back at pictures. I'm like, look at where we were, like, look at what we were able to give our kids. I can't believe we were able to, you know, that we did that. Like, yeah, they don't even know how good they have it, you know. Like, look at them standing on that mountaintop, or even just building like, you know, their perseverance. Like our kids have hiked. I think one of our biggest trips was they hiked the six-mile route, it was like 2,000 feet elevation gain, and then they jumped in like the freezing lake at the end. And you know, so it builds like this look what you can do. And even when you're hiking, like you're tired, like God can help you, like he'll get you through. Like, let's sing a song, like let's, and so just there's so much that's deeper than just like we're on a trip, we're on a vacation, we're having fun about these trips, like the nature of them. And um, there's a couple books that talk a lot about being in nature with your kids and how forming it is, like for their um character, your relationships, and also even just their understanding of God. And one of them, it's written by Greta Eskridge. I don't know if you know who she is. She has um, she's like a homeschooler podcaster, and she has a book called Advent, I think it's called Adventuring Together, and she talks about the misadventures a lot. Um, kind of like you were talking about with your honeymoon. I kept thinking about how she says in her family, they have this phrase where they always say, It'll make a good story later.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:01

When something goes wrong. And it's really true. Like those stories later become something that's also like a good memory because you did it together and you persevered through it and it worked out, and um, that that can actually be a really good thing in the end. So she talks about that, just you know, like learning to be cheerful in these hard circumstances. So I almost feels like you go for 10 days, but the amount of learning and growth that happens in those 10 days can be monumental. So um it's worth it, even if it, you know, is small. Even if you go for a weekend, yeah, road trip, you know, like I think and and I think for women too and moms, and you can get so caught up in all the things that you're doing and just being at home, being in your four walls. Even for many years, I I would get to a point of I gotta get out of this area. Like everything's dry. I'm just starting to feel. I think my seasonal depression here is like opposite. It's like it's too dry. And I need to see some clouds and like watch a thunderstorm and you know have some evergreens in my my line of vision, you know? Yeah.

Allison 1:06:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:16

There's a lot of research that talks about how just seeing the color green is like changes you. So I think for us as moms, it sounds like, oh, it's gonna be so much work. You know, we got to do all this packing and all this stuff. But I think the benefits you get from getting outside of your everyday and your normal worries and stressors is really invaluable. I think it it will provide you with some peace and some perspective and some rest, even if you got to work for the rest.

Allison 1:06:47

Yeah. That's a thanks for saying that. There is some work up front for the rest to come later. So don't don't begrudge that work because it will pay off later on in the trip when you take the time to do the preparation that in order to make things, you know, not to micromanage every aspect, but in order to make things smoother throughout as smooth as you can throughout the trip, it will pay off later to do that.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:12

And honestly, a lot of the work is just beforehand and afterward too. Like you're still doing a little work on the trip, but you're not doing a lot of the things you normally do. So I I will tell myself on the day we're leaving, like, just keep going, and then you will be in a car. And at the end of the day, you will be like, wherever. And yeah, you know, it's gonna be so worth it.

Allison 1:07:31

So yeah, yeah, that's great. Well, Jenny, thank you so much. Thank you so much. Where can people connect with you? Because you do a little writing and you do some stuff. So where's a good place for listeners to connect with you?

SPEAKER_01 1:07:43

I do have an Instagram account. I'm not super active on it, but um, I probably have stuff about road trips, our road trips on there, and then I'll have like links on there probably to other things that I've that I have or other ways to connect. But my Instagram is Bloomwild Schoolhouse, and I can give you the Yeah, we'll link it.

Allison 1:08:02

Um link.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:03

But so I sometimes share about trips on there and I've written about stuff in other places as well. Um, and then I'm actually working on I've doing some road trip like bundles. So for you to for families who want to go on a road trip and do school, because I usually do road trip school with my kids before we go, where I find books about people from the area, history of the area, maybe artists from the area, animals, you know, all these things. And we'll like read a fun book for a couple of weeks, and then we'll make a journal that has like, you know, when did it become a state? And, you know, what's unique to this area? What's their state flower? And which is fun. Like when we did Colorado last year, we were hiking and it's like, oh look, there's their state flower. Oh, look, there's the state tree, you know. And so I'm I am making gradually trying to make some of those. And like I should have been doing this as I was going, but trying to make some of those so that if other people wanted to, and then in them, I'm including like, here's some great places to go in this state, here's some great things to see, like, here's some tips of things that you can do here if you want to go travel to this spot. So I don't know when I'll have it all.

Allison 1:09:15

Okay. When it'll be slow.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:17

Yeah. So I think I have it on Teachers Paid Teachers. Okay. I do have a Teachers Paid Teachers account. So I will be putting them through there.

Allison 1:09:24

Okay. Well, can we download as well? Okay. That'll be perfect. Oh, that's exciting. Thank you. Thank you so much for coming and sharing all about your summer adventures and your love of travel. I'm all excited to go now. I need to go somewhere now. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:38

Can I leave?

Allison 1:09:40

Well, I hope you guys have a wonderful trip. I can't wait to hear all about your time on the prairie. Yep. That's so exciting. Yeah. All right. Thanks again for being here, Ginny. All right. Thank you for listening to this deep dive on summer road trip adventures with Ginny Naninga. I hope you're inspired to go adventuring on the road this summer with your family. I know it is a lot of work to prepare for this kind of trip, but it's so worth it. I love Ginny's answer to people when they asked her how she does it with kids. She said she's going to have to change a diaper no matter what. So, would she rather change a diaper at home or looking out over an amazing view while having an adventure with her family? Even when things don't go according to plan, or the challenges of lots of together time starts to creep in, they are still building up their shared family culture by making memories to last a lifetime. If you've made it this far, you are a long haul listener, and I thank you for staying until the end. Let's make this episode's emoji a map. Drop one in a text, email, or comment and tell me where you are planning or thinking about road tripping to this summer. I can't wait to hear where you all are going. I want to thank Ginny again for coming on the show and sharing all of her road trip wisdom. Be sure to connect with her on Instagram at Bloom Wild Schoolhouse. I will link that down in the show notes. I will also link resources that we mentioned and information on the national parks, free entry for families with fourth graders. All of that will be on the blog post with the extended show notes. If you have found value in today's episode, please share it with a homemaker you know. You can also leave us a rating and a review on your listening app. And if you are so moved, you can leave us a tip over at buymeacoffee.com/slash theartofome. And don't forget to order your copy of the first issue of Homemaker's Journal. That's all for this episode. I will be back next week with the final Monday motivation and the final homemaker portrait of the spring season. Until then, keep practicing your art of making a home.