Tag: love

This trip got off to a bit of a rocky start. The night before we realized that the RV wouldn’t start – we think it had something to do with the boys playing with buttons near the steering wheel, burning out the battery. After charging the battery for a while, we tried again and … it still didn’t start. After fiddling for a bit, we couldn’t figure out what was wrong. Luckily, the RV comes with an emergency start button – which essentially starts the engine using the RV batteries, which are separate from the battery that drives the RV. At least we could drive in the morning and get someone to look at the electrical in Cincinnati.

Then, to our surprise, the truck just started working. After driving for a bit, we stopped for some gas and the truck just worked. Maybe something just started working or we have some engine fairies. At least we won’t have to worry about it for a while.

The rest of the drive was pretty smooth, until we arrived at the campground. Google, in its infinite wisdom, directed us down a road with no outlet or place to turn around. We assumed this led to the campground. We were close – it was one street over, and, no, it did not connect. We managed to find a stable that let us turn around and go back the right way. What’s even crazier is as we made it to the check-in point, Google was trying to tell us to turn around. It’s usually very reliable, but this time it was really off.

Saturday was a rainy day, so we took the kids to the Newport Aquarium. This place was highly recommended, so I was excited to take the boys. However, I was disappointed – from the ticketing process to the exhibits, it was just a let down.

We arrived and found a massive line for tickets, so I went online. We encountered an error, so we called the helpline only to be told that we couldn’t buy tickets because of the long line. The way the sell tickets it’s by times and the next available wasn’t for two hours. This made no sense as the website showed a lot of a availability, so we just tried again for the next time slot. Guess what happened – it worked and we walked right in. Thanks for the help, helpline.

The actual aquarium is nice, but it really annoyed me that I paid for mini-man to go in and none of the exhibits were at kid height. Even in the kids section, the exhibits we’re above most of their heads. Why charge for little kids of they can’t enjoy the exhibits. We wound up carrying the kids most of the time just so they could see stuff. All-in-all, not a fun experience. I would recommend this place for those with older kids or as a date place, but if you have young kids, skip it and go to the Children’s Museum in Cincinnati.

The next day was another rainy day, but we enjoyed just staying home and playing on the floor with the kids. Sometimes, that’s all you need – just a quiet place to play with your kids.

Monday was, yup you guessed it, rainy. So we decided to check out the Duke Energy Children’s Museum, which is housed in a 1940’s art deco train station. This building is gorgeous! I wish we could’ve seen more but it was under construction.

The station is no longer an active train station and now houses multiple museums. We visited the children’s museum and it was awesome. The museum spans multiple rooms and is filled with activities – climbing, balls, pretend, building, and water play. The boys had so much fun, we ended up staying for four hours!

We chose to let the kids play instead of going to lunch, so after the museum we took the boys to an early dinner. We also hoped it would make it easier to take the boys grocery shopping.

Ha! We ended up dragging two, crying little boys through the store. That is until we got to the ice cream – once mini-man spotted his favorite ice cream he calmed down. It even led to some dancing in the produce section.

During a much needed down day, where we played at home, Alex led Damon to another family in the park who are finishing their full-time RV experience. They exchanged stories and gave some recommendations on what to do in the area, including a local train exhibit, called Entertrainment Junction.

We checked it out the next day and it did not disappoint. This awesome place housed one of the largest train layouts we’d ever seen. Additionally, there were ride on trains, climb on trains, train tables, and a bunch of stuff to entertain the boys. We had a wonderful time as a family. We would’ve loved to stay longer, but the boys had horrible nights sleeps, and soon started wearing down.

But that didn’t stop us from hitting a few stores on the way home. Our first stop was a bust, but mini-man did have fun trying on a pair of too-big roller blades. Guess it’s time to get him some skates of his own. Then we stopped at IKEA for some food plus a couple of things we’d been wanting to get.

Out last day, we hung out at the campsite. I honestly don’t remember too much of what we did – at this point, I was exhausted. Little-dude was starting to get sick, so I wasn’t getting any sleep. I remember at one point, mini-man wanted to go swimming and started putting on his swim suit. Unfortunately, we didn’t have access to a pool, so Damon tried to help by putting together the kiddie pool. Didn’t work at all. I am very grateful that we have access to a pool at our upcoming stop in St. Louis.

But before we get there, we have to stop in Louisville.

At least according to the all-knowing Drew Carey. We started our long journey to Cleveland early in hopes of getting a starting while the boys were still asleep. It half worked – little-dude woke up just as we were leaving, but mini-man stayed asleep.

What seemed to help was dividing the day up into smaller parts and stoping about every 90 minutes. Our first break was to meet up with a guy who was selling his Rokenbok set (I’d never heard of this stuff until Damon found it at a Goodwill and the kids just love it).

We then set forth to the half-way point of our journey – Elkhart, Indiana – for lunch. We managed to find a McDonalds with a playplace, and truck parking (bonus!). It was the perfect stop as it gave us adults a break and the kids could climb and play.

Our third stop was turned into just a restroom break for Damon, as both kids had fallen asleep, which always makes the drive easier. They both woke up just as we arrived at the campground, both needing to get out of the RV. I have to say, despite this being such a long drive – they both did very well.

Unfortunately, the long day plus the long naps meant that the kids were up late. Fortunately, we have a nice campsite that we can enjoy and they could play. It’s really cute to see mini-man set himself up at the picnic table with his paint set and just go to town.

Saturday, we accomplished something new – mini-mans first haircut. You may have noticed that he has long hair. That is three years worth of hair growth for him. It looks like he inherited my hair growth and thickness. A while ago, Damon and I started to notice that his bangs were bothering him and the back of his hair was constantly getting tangled.

On our way to Goodwill, we noticed a haircut place next door that had no waiting. We talked about getting mini-mans haircut and this seemed like a great opportunity. Damon and I were both nervous as to how he’d react – he’d never done this before. To our surprise, he sat there and just watched. He seemed fascinated with the whole process. And when it was done, he looked so cute! I think he feels better too.

After our stops, we headed home and spent the evening planning our new route. Now that we need to go back to Chicago, we needed to figure out where to go next. After planning so many stops, we were back to having no place to go. Thankfully, we are passed Labor Day and parks now have tons of availability. If you check out our leg #5 post, you can see our updated itinerary.

Sunday was a mini Great Movie Ride reunion, when we met up with our old friend Jasmine at the Greater Cleveland Aquarium. It was great to catch up with her and talk about our travels, kids, and Bitcoin.

The aquarium was adorable. It was Jasmine’s daughters first visit, as well, and she loved seeing all the fish. My kids, just wanted to be held the whole time, but they still liked looking at the fish.

On our way back, both boys fell asleep, so i took the opportunity to go shoe shopping. This is my biggest vice – i love shoes! Damon dropped me off at DSW, and I headed straight for the clearance section, which was filled with amazing, colorful shoes from the summer. Pro tip: When its back to school time, they put the cute, summer heels on sale!. I hadn’t been to a DSW in years and loved looking at all the shoes. I had a pile within minutes. I did manage to narrow down my finds to just two pairs (I remembered d that I lived in an RV and probably couldn’t store more than two) – a cute pair of flats and some amazing Jessica Simpson red heels.

Labor Day Monday was our originally scheduled leave date. However, after looking at the campground bookings, and seeing what Cleveland had to offer, we decided to extend our stay. Plus, with literally everyone leaving, we had our pick of sites and moved our rig to a campsite with some nice shade and fun area for the boys to play in.

Since everyone else was leaving in the morning, we decided to take the boys out for a while. We did some grocery shopping and hit some thrift stores. When we returned, almost all of the RV’s and tents were gone. It’s amazing how much difference a day makes. Now that we’re past this holiday, every campground has unlimited availability.

On Tuesday, we trekked an hour into Cleveland to check out the Cleveland Children’s Museum. While an hour in the car with two boys can be taxing, it was worth it. This children’s museum opened about a year ago in an old mansion and it’s amazing. The main floor had a water room filled with balls, tunnels, and scarfs – lots of hands on fun. The adjacent room had a huge, two-story tree house with multiple rooms, each with a different activity – like a grocery store, a hospital, mechanic, and garden. There was so much to do on this floor that we never left it. Damon explored the other floors, which had art, reading, and a room dedicated to doll houses. It was really one of the best children’s museums we’ve visited.

Unfortunately for me, something was effecting my head, making it very difficult to get rid of a particularly nasty migraine. Looking back, I think the rainy weather might’ve had something to do with it. By the time we got home from the kids museum, I was in a lot of pain. I was hoping a good nights sleep would help, but, alas, it did not. In an effort to combat this, I spent a large part of the next day in bed, trying to relax away the headache. While I did that, Damon played with the kids.

As Thursday was our final day, we made a list of things to accomplish – cleaning, Sam’s club, lunch, and packing up. It seems to help when we put together a list – we accomplish a lot and makes our travel day much easier.

We had a lot of fun at this stop and I’m looking forward to our next destination – Cincinnati, Ohio, where we have a lot planned.

Well our second time in Chicago was certainly interesting and confirmed one thing for me – I definitely don’t want to live here. Don’t get me wrong, there’s some amazing amenities and attractions but the combination of horrific traffic and excruciatingly, frustrating toll roads, makes Chicago not the place for me.

The upside to this stop is it was only 90 minutes to get there. But, this also means that our next drive is really long. After, we parked at our campsite, we took the kids out to play. Unlike the parking lot we boondocked at the last time we were in Chicago, this campground had a pool, playground, and minigolf. We had a lot of fun.

Unfortunately, not being near Chicago meant that when we wanted to get into the downtown area, it took almost two hours! Which is near impossible to do with two toddlers in the car.

Somehow we managed to make it into the City without too much stress, just in time for our sailing trip on Lake Michigan. Unfortunately, the weather people were dead wrong about the weather. Instead of beautiful weather and nice winds, we got very forceful winds that made the trip very choppy. We made it maybe five minutes before we aborted. If it were Damon and myself, we probably would have toughed it out. But we didn’t want the kids to be uncomfortable, so we went back.

Instead, we went to a playground to figure out our next move. We thought about a kids musuem or something to entertain the boys, but they were very tired, so we started the journey back home, with some stops along the way to make the drive easier. Unfortunately, traffic at 3p still sucks and took twice as long to get anywhere.

The next day, we tried to stay close to the campground and check out some thrift stores near by. While we enjoyed our hunt, and found some fun things, the driving was just unbearable.

Our last day became an unexpected, adventure with some fun parts to it. We noticed mini-mans teeth needed some attention, so we took him to the dentist. Just as we thought, he needed some work. Unfortunately, he would barely let the dentist touch him without screaming, so we couldn’t address any of his issues. We decided it would be best to schedule him for surgery – it’ll be easier on mini-man and we can get everything done at one time.

The staff was fantastic and great with mini-man. All-in-all, he did pretty good – he didn’t bite or run away, he just screamed (which is understandable).

After lunch, we took him to the pediatrician to get a check-up and a form signed for his surgery. After so much, we decided to take him somewhere to play. We passed a children’s zoo by the dentist and decided to check it out.

Oh my gosh, this place was adorable. Really small, but it had a huge enclosure with the friendliest goats I’ve ever seen. Mini-man stayed there for an hour, following them, brushing them, and having a wonderful time.

Once we got home, we did what we usually do – we got ready to go. With so much that happened, we knew we had some re-planning to do for mini-man’s surgery. At least its really easy to make new arrangements. Plus, we might get to do some fun stuff along the way. Now to face a six hour drive to Cleveland!!!

WE left Chicago assuming it was a short trip. This short trip became six hours after we spent a couple of hours looking for gas. We’d used a lot of gas while boondocking – we still had some, but not enough to go all the way to our next stop.

I swear when we finally parked at the state park in the Wisconsin Dells, the boys jumped at the chance to go outside and play in the dirt. We pulled out a lot of the outdoor toys and the boys went to town.

On our one day in the town, we took a train ride through the dells. This small railroad is adorable and the boys loved it. They both sat and watched the woods go by, both making choo-choo sounds.

Thanks to the rain, we spent the rest of the day playing at home. By the evening, the boys wanted to play outside again and didn’t let a little rain stop them. I guess we spent a little too much time in the concrete jungle for our boys taste.

We were surprised to wake up to rain the next day. The forecast predicted the rain would stop overnight, so we left our outdoor stuff outside to dry. Oh, well. At least most of it was under the awning.

We spent the morning relaxing and playing outside a bit, but soon got antsy so we went to explore Minnesota a bit. We hit a goodwill and took the kids to an awesome playground. A nice, low key, family day.

I woke up on Saturday, exhausted. I think little-dude is having a growth spurt which is causing him to have restless sleep – which gives me no sleep. In times like this, I do stuff. So I started cleaning and reorganizing the toys. But since I’d just done that a few weeks prior, there wasn’t much to do, so I moved onto route planning.

I mentioned before that we had no reservations after this stop. I don’t like having nothing, so i started plotting our next route. We kept putting it off because we couldn’t figure out our next steps. Once I was able to plot out an easy efficient route, Damon started making reservations.

After hours of planning and researching, we were frazzled and wanted to get out of the house. After grabbing some lunch, we headed to the iconic Mall of America. And boy was I surprised.

I’m used to malls that go on forever, that have overcrowded food courts and can feel overwhelming. This place, despite its reputation for having a roller coaster/theme park inside, never felt overwhelming. The designers did a wonderful job designing the building so that we always felt comfortable. Even for a sunday, which was supposed to be busy, it never felt like it was.

We took the kids to the Crayola Experience, similar to the one we’ve taken them too in Orlando, and they had fun climbing and crawling. We even got an annual pass, as it was only $10 more, per person, and it’s good at ALL their locations!

After a grabbing some food, we wondered around a bit, checking out the Nickeledeon theme park area and the Lego Store. I even bought the boys a new Duplo set that I hadn’t seen before, but new they’d love since it was full of animals.

I woke up the next day excited to get back to the Mall of America and see some of their awesome attractions. Unfortunately, I was met with disappointment.

We stopped at the Sea Life Aquarium first, thinking the boys would like to see fish. About a third of the way in, Mini-man had a melt-down and refused to go on. Damon took him out, while little-dude and I finished. Afterwards, it took a while to find Damon and mini-man in the mall. Once we caught up both boys passed out and took long naps. Which left Damon and me to sit on an uncomfortable bench for hours.

We tried to regroup once we got food and tried to go through the aquarium again. Which led to another melt down. I was feeling quite frustrated – I cou;don’t figure out why mini-man was so upset. As a last ditch effort, we went to Crayola, where mini-man calmed down while playing with some play dough. Unfortunately, we went in just as they were closing, Mini-man did not want to leave, so he had another melt-down.

Damon’s quick thinking led us back to the big playground, where the boys enjoyed climbing, swinging, and getting wet on the splash pad.

By the time we got home, I was emotionally spent. I wanted to do so much at the Mall but didnt get to do any of them.

On our last day, we decided to approach the day differently, trying to learn our lesson from the day before. Instead of going straight to the Mall, we went to a playground. This place was close to the RV and was really cute. Made of all wood and shaped like a castle, this structure offered a lot of climbing and exploring opportunities for the boys. After about an hour, we all left happy.

After a quick break for lunch, we headed to the Mall for one last trip. First stop – Moose Mini Golf. This was interesting, as the boys had their own way of playing that involved wanting to play the same whole, over and over again.

Next we headed to Crayola to give the boys plenty of time to play. Little-dude fell asleep, so Damon held him while I played with mini-man. I assumed he wanted to climb but he took to painting and sat there for an hour! I think a paint set is in his future.

After Crayola closed, Damon took the boys to Lego while I went to ride Paul Bunyon Log Ride at Nickelodeon Universe. Very cute but the audio-animatonics were very outdated. I shared a car with two girls who didnt want to get wet, so I laughed every time they squealed at the water. I’m glad I got to ride.

When I met back up with Damon, mini-man was fast asleep so we headed back to the car. Since we were leaving the next day, we decided to stop to grab some supplies. while we were shopping we found a Barbie Power Wheels camper – adorable!

Now that we’re finished in Minnesota, we’re turning around and making our way to the east coast. First up – Madison, Wisconsin.

Boondocking is an RV term, which means to camp without any water or electrical hook-ups. We first tried this type of camping in New York. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a pleasant experience – it got hot very fast and couldn’t run the AC except during two hour blocks in the morning an evening. couple that with an inaccessible fridge and no way to charge/use electronics and you end up with a very cranky wife, kids, and husband.

When we decided to camp in Chicago, the only place available, that wasn’t an hour outside of the city, was a parking lot near the convention center. It was just a place to park – no hookups. I was nervos, so say the least. But, this time, things were a bit different – we had larger battery banks to run/charge our electronics a large water tank, a large gas tank for AC, no restrictions on AC use, and a much bigger fridge. We also did a lot of planning ahead of time – researching activities to keep us out of the RV during the height of the heat, pre-cooking food so we could keep cooking to a minimum, thus not heating up our RV unit, and covering all of our windows with space blankets to keep out as much heat as possible.

The results were much better this time around. Our location was ideal for exploring the city with our boys. It also encouraged us to get out more and stay home less.

The unknown cost however, is there. While we could run the AC to keep things cool, it does drain the gas tankl. By the time we made it to our last day, we were down to aquater of a tank of gas. After doing the math we discovered that we spent about $30 a day in gas, on top of $35 a night to park. That’s about the same as staying at a nice KOA, just without the ammenities.

Pro:

• Cheaper
• Awesome location
• Encouraged us to get out of the RV

Con

• More money to run the air conditioner
• No Amenities
• No shade

I think, overall, it was a great experience. We got to see a lot of Chicago. But I’m also glad we didn’t stay longer. Maybe Ill give this boondocking thing another try.