How We Plan Our Travel: The Gory Details

Now that I've finally finished writing up stories from our summer vacation, I can get back to a topic someone asked me to way back at the start of the stories- namely, how we plan and organize our trips.

Long time readers may remember that I touched on this a little bit several years ago, when I had a toddler and a preschooler instead of a preschooler and an elementary school kid. To be honest, much of that old post is still true. I think the biggest change is that we no longer try to schedule our driving for afternoon nap time, and we can get away with a few longer travel days now, particularly if we break them up with a visit to something fun after lunch, before the second leg of the drive.

Our most difficult travel struggle now is around food. Pumpkin is not the easiest child to feed even at home, and travel seems to make her even less willing to try new foods. We generally deal with this by buying portable foods that we deem acceptable meal substitutes (e.g., Go-Go Squeeze applesauces, granola bars, peanuts). We also try to have a lot of potential restaurants researched ahead of time (more on that below), and prioritize getting a good solid breakfast, since that is Pumpkin's best meal.

I think the request was primarily for me to write about how we accomplish item #1 on that old list of advice: planning like crazy. Before I launch into what we do, a few caveats:

1. Eating issues aside, we have the extremely good fortune to have two very enthusiastic travelers for children. They don't mind sleeping in new hotels, and are generally up for exploring new places. They even like airplane rides. Believe me, I know how lucky we are in this regard, and we are grateful. 
2. We are also lucky in that we can for the most part avoid the type of trip that my kids don't enjoy so much: the extremely long drive through not-so-interesting locales to get to a destination. The most difficult vacations we do in terms of travel are the ones in which we drive from our home in San Diego to my parents' home outside Phoenix. We generally split that into two 3 hour drives, and stay overnight in Yuma. 
3. We have a lot of money, relatively speaking, and this definitely makes travel easier, in so many ways. We are very grateful for that, too.

So, to our method. Most of this is done by me, because I enjoy it. Mr. Snarky helps out on some parts, and also recognizes that even if it is a chore I mostly enjoy, it is still a chore, since it is a lot of work, benefits the entire family, and has a deadline.

Step 1: Defining the Framework for the Trip

The first thing we do is agree on an itinerary. We get a guidebook, do some internet reading, look at a map of the general locale we're thinking of visiting, and pick out some potential stops. When the kids get older, I hope to involve them in this. In fact, Pumpkin could probably be involved now, if I could find books written at the appropriate reading level.

Once we have a list of possible stops, I sit down with Google Maps and measure driving times between stops. This can sometimes go a bit combinatorial on me, as I consider various possible permutations of stops. At one point during the planning of the recent Colorado vacation, I just measured the driving time between every possible combination of a set of three or four destinations, wrote that down, and kept it on hand.

I kept it on hand because the next step is to book hotel rooms. Sometimes, lodging considerations force me to change the itinerary. Sometimes we have a fixed date mid itinerary, too- for instance, we decided early on that we wanted to spend the 4th of July in Aspen this year. Therefore, we booked that room first, and then I shuffled other options around until I had an itinerary that made sense with lodging we liked.

When I'm booking hotel rooms, I look for a hotel in which we can get a suite and that has some restaurants within walking distance. It works best if we can have breakfast at our hotel, too, either provided by the hotel or cold cereal made possible by a refrigerator in the room. We can't always get everything we want, of course, and then Mr. Snarky and I discuss and decide on the best compromise. This will get easier when our kids are old enough to allow us to relax our preference for a suite into a preference for a suite OR adjoining rooms.

Step 2: Filling in Detailed Options

Next, we list various things we might see and do at each stop, and also a range of restaurant options, with some near the hotel, some near the sights we might want to see, and sometimes some that are destinations in their own right. When I research restaurants, I still love to find brewpubs- both because they tend to be family friendly and because Mr. Snarky and I like to try local beers. I also find that Mexican restaurants are good options to include, as most are family friendly. Beyond that, I Google for family friendly restaurants in X, and see what I find. I also enter a location (our hotel or a point of interest) in Google Maps and then search for restaurants nearby, and check out their websites to see if I think there is food on the menu my kids will eat. It makes me very sad when restaurants don't include kids menus in their websites, but a lot don't. I just note that and include the restaurant anyway if I think it sounds interesting.

I also search for playgrounds close to our hotel and/or various points of interest. This is usually the hardest search I do. I will probably rant more about that in a later post.

The next step is to sketch out 1-3 potential plans for each stop. We are flexible and change plans on the fly, but it is nice to have a starting point. Mr. Snarky and I frequently revisit and revise these during the trip, over beers after the kids are in bed (one of many reasons we prefer to get a suite when we can).

I also sketch out potential plans for our travel days. I include potential lunch and snack stops, as well as the location of playgrounds at likely stopping points. If we're planning to stop for lunch mid-drive, I usually have a preferred destination and a destination roughly an hour earlier to fall back to if we hit traffic or anything else delays us. This is less essential now that Mr. Snarky and I both have smartphones and can do some last minute searching, but cell coverage is not always great, and I prefer to be prepared ahead of time if I can.

All of this information goes into a travel plan document, which lives in Google Docs (accessible anywhere!) but is also printed out and stored in our travel folder. Here is an excerpt of the travel document from the Colorado trip:

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Colorado Summer Vacation

Arrive: [redacted]

SW flight 4782, transfer in Las Vegas to SW flight 1848

Leave: [redacted]

SW flight 2868

Car rental: Alamo reservation number [redacted]

.... (entries for each stop, and for any significant travel days between stops) ....

Colorado Springs

Arrive 7/7, stay 7/ 8, leave 7/9. Drive time from Alamosa: 2 hr 40 min

Weather: Highs in the mid 80s, Lows in the mid 50s; weather at top of Pikes Peak can be much cooler.

Lodging: Embassy Suites: http://embassysuites3.hilton.com/en/hotels/colorado/embassy-suites-colorado-springs-COSCCES/index.html

7290 Commerce Center Drive 1-719-599-9100

Priorities:

Pikes Peak: http://www.pikes-peak.com/

14k feet. Cog railway to the top. Railway leaves from Manitou Springs, which is a historic town w/mineral spring water fountains. Trips every 80 mins. Have reservations at 1:20 on 7/8

Garden of the Gods: http://www.gardenofgods.com/home/index.cfm?flash=1

Cool rock formations. Several short hiking trails available.

The Broadmoor: http://www.broadmoor.com/

Fancy resort. Good restaurants. Paddleboating on Lake Cheyenne

Manitou Cliff Dwellings: http://www.pikes-peak.com/attractions/manitou-cliff-dwellings/

Anaszi cliff dwellings, outside of Manitou Springs

Tours available 9-6

10 Cliff Rd.

Other Options:

Old Colorado City: historic district, now a shopping area: http://shopoldcoloradocity.com/

Restaurant Ideas:

Summit House at the top of Pikes’ Peak.

Run by Aramark, so probably nothing special.. but the only option at the top.

Crystal Park Cantina in Manitou: http://crystalparkcantina.com/

Mexican food, not clear if there is a kids’ menu

178 Crystal Park Rd, Manitou Springs

Colorado Mountain Brewing at Roundhouse (Manitou Springs): http://www.cmbrew.com/

Unclear if there is a kids’ menu, but they have woodfired pizzas and mac and cheese

Not far from Manitou Springs

600 S 21st St #180, Colorado Springs

The Margarita at Pine Creek: http://www.margaritaatpinecreek.com/

Near hotel. Closed Mondays. May not be a good choice w/kids, but looks interesting

Old Chicago: http://www.oldchicago.com/

Chain, with kids’ menu and a big beer list, walking distance from hotel

The Airplane Restaurant: http://www.theairplanerestaurant.com/

Restaurant is actually an old airplane, plus an adjacent room

1665 N Newport Rd, Colorado Springs

Trinity Brewing: http://trinitybrew.com/

Small kids’ menu, might be tough to find [Pumpkin] something, but food looks good.

1466 Garden of the Gods Rd W #184, Colorado Springs

Phantom Canyon Brewing: http://www.phantomcanyon.com/

Reviews say it is family friendly. Unclear on kids’ menu, but they have pretzels. Smoked Gouda soup gets rave reviews.

2 E Pikes Peak Ave, Colorado Springs

La Carreta

Well reviewed Mexican food, no online menu

35 Iowa Ave, Colorado Springs

Possible Plans:

Arrive early afternoon, and spend it in the Garden of the Gods. Visit the Manitou Cliff Dwellings Tuesday morning, have lunch in Manitou Springs, and then take the train up Pikes Peak at 1:20. If there is extra time one afternoon or evening, spend it exploring downtown or paddleboating at the Broadmoor.

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Step 3: Write it All Down and Keep the Documents Organized

The travel folder is a green folder (not sure why I picked green, but it is always green) that has our travel plan, print outs of our airline ticket receipts, our rental car confirmation, our hotel booking confirmations, and any other receipts or confirmations for prebookings. I label everything at the top and keep them papers in the order in which we'll need them. This makes it easy to find your confirmation number if a hotel clerk can't find you. I shuffle the pages to the back as we go past those stops. Over the course of the vacation, the folder picks up random other pieces of paper that we want to save, too, things like brochures and maps that will help Mr. Snarky remember the details when he is writing captions for our pictures.

The final piece of our method is the packing list. It is a list of things to pack for the kids and a few very important things for us (like my asthma inhaler and glasses). We assume that the grown ups can manage to pack their own clothes without a list, although sometimes I suspect that is a risky assumption, as packing can happen much later and in a more rushed fashion than we would like. Be that as it may, the list focuses on the clothes and other odds and ends the kids need. I look up the weather ahead of time, and then we decide how many short sleeve shirts, how many long sleeve shirts, etc., etc., each kid needs. We include toiletries, and when the kids were younger, the number of diapers we wanted to bring. Basically, this is the list to make sure we don't forget anything that would be overly annoying to replace. (We used to buy more diapers on site, but always wanted to make sure we had a healthy number for the trip and first night.)

The packing list came into being because we made our first major trip with Pumpkin back during the days when we weren't getting anywhere near enough sleep to be able to count on our mental abilities, and I was writing lists for everything.  It has been so helpful that it lives on even though everyone (usually) sleeps through the night now. Each new trip, we copy the list from the previous one, rename it and modify it. We print it out and check things off as we pack. Then, as we're on the trip and discover things we wish we'd brought, we write them on the list, with the intention of transferring them back to the electronic document when we get home, so that we won't forget the next time.

Step 4: Go on Vacation and Have A Lot of Fun!

And we do. Our trip plan document is helpful in averting meltdowns and coping with surprise changes. Not all meltdowns can be averted, of course, but I still think I at least have more fun on the trip having done the preparation ahead of time.

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At this point you are either sitting at your computer staring at your screen in horror at our over the top organization, or thinking which bits to steal for your own over the top organization. Either way, I feel it is only fair to confess that despite all of this organization, the odds are still only 50-50 that we will remember a bottle opener for the beers we drink in our hotel rooms after the kids are in bed. We've developed a rather impressive collection of souvenir bottle openers as a result.

Feel free to point and laugh in the comments, or to tell us about how you plan and organize your trips.

An Unusual Sort of Getaway

We're just back from a long weekend with my parents, who live in a suburb of Phoenix, AZ. My aunt and uncle were in town, and the family planned an early celebration for my grandparents' 70th wedding anniversary. I wanted to be there for that, and thought the kids would have fun visiting their grandparents, so we figured out the logistics and off we went. My husband had just taken a couple of days off when his parents were in town, so he couldn't spare any time off. I could, but didn't want to drive over to AZ with the kids on my own, so we decided that my Mom would fly over to join us on the road trip. My husband would fly over on Friday night, go to the party and hang out with us on Saturday, and then we'd drive back on Sunday.

It was a pretty good plan. But nothing went quite as planned. The basics all happened as we planned- but everything was just a little bit off.

First of all, we were all sick. We all caught a nasty cold, starting with my parents a couple of weeks before the trip. None of us were likely to be contagious, but we weren't feeling like going out and having a lot of fun. Of all the travelers, the only one who felt really good was Pumpkin, who shrugged this cold off in a just a couple of days.

Then, Petunia's usual post-infection mild constipation turned for the worse, making the drive over pretty miserable for her- she screamed in protest when we got her back into her car seat after our mid-morning break and after our lunch/play stop. She cried and screamed "Mommy! Help! Poopies!" for most of our first evening at my parents' house. I finally had to go get some laxative for her to sort things out.

Finally, we got spooked by the specter of the vacation tummy bug, and ended up making only a brief appearance at the anniversary party. My cousin hosted the party, and one of her kids got sent home from day care after throwing up. We are still a bit traumatized by the great Hawaii Christmas Norovirus incident, and were more than a little afraid of the thought of trying to drive home with vomiting children... so we bowed out of the party and just swung by for a little while when the party had moved outdoors. (It turns out that we need not have worried- the poor kid had gotten four teeth in quick succession and probably just had an upset stomach from the teething drool. Better safe than sorry, I guess.) We did go around to spend more time with my grandparents and my aunt and uncle that evening, and the kids played happily while we visited- so at least we didn't miss out on seeing everyone.

But, you know what? It was still a nice little mini-vacation. It was great to see my grandparents, and to give them a chance to see the kids- who behaved better than I dared to hope during our visit, leaving my grandparents and my aunt and uncle with a false but flattering opinion of our children! (They are cute, but they are not usually so angelic.) The kids had a lot of fun at Mimi and Boppa's house, even if we didn't get in the fun outings we had expected. I got the chance to lounge around a bit while the kids were entertained by my parents. I even read a book.

So, despite the general air of feeling not quite well that hung over the trip, I'm glad we went. The alert reader may notice that our travel plans were quite different from those we employed during our California Road Trip- on that trip, we tried to keep the driving to only a couple of hours per day. On this trip, we drove from San Diego to Phoenix (a six hour drive if you don't stop) in a single day. 
Frankly, I was surprised at how well the drives went. Both directions, we left in the morning and stopped in Yuma for lunch and a good long play at the West Wetlands park, which is a truly great park, with a "regular" playground and a gigantic castle "imagination playground". On the way over, I decided to break up the morning drive by stopping at the Desert View tower outside of Jacumba. The kids were moderately impressed with the tower and the view and not at all impressed with the large number of unleashed (but incredibly docile and non-threatening!) dogs roaming around the place, so they would not explore the rocks nearby as I had hoped. We really should work on getting Pumpkin comfortable with dogs again- and I guess now we need to work on Petunia, too, who hadn't previously shown any fear of dogs.

I wish I could say that I have figured out the secret to keeping young children amused in the car, but that would be a lie. Petunia slept a lot, which obviously helped. Pumpkin read, colored, and played with a felt board my Mom had made her. I had my Kindle Fire with me, and she played with it a bit, but mostly preferred to read or look out the window. She napped a little bit, too.

I did pick up some ideas to make the driving (and flying) portion of our upcoming Texas vacation easier: I think I will get each kid her own clipboard and pouch of appropriate crayons/markers, and stock it with papers for coloring. I will also take along some small plastic bags to use to pass snacks to the backseat- we don't let them snack in the car very often, so getting a snack is a treat and serves as a good whine-diffuser. But really, I'm have no idea why the kids tolerated the long drives so well. I I am officially accepting the universe's offer of two good travelers as payback for the fact that neither of my kids slept through the night much before they turned two (heck, Petunia still doesn't reliably sleep through the night, and she is two and a half already). I wonder if the universe thinks this also covers the fact that the kids won't eat vegetables?

Traveling with A Preschooler and a Toddler... and Liking It

One of the amusing things about telling people about our recent California Road Trip is their reaction when I tell them that we did the trip with a 4.5 year old and an almost 2 year old. They mostly look at me like I am crazy.

And maybe I am crazy, but I have to say- it was really a great trip. We had a lot of fun.

Which is not to say that there weren't meltdowns and moments when I wondered why on earth I had decided that we should take a road trip this year (answer: I didn't feel like messing with the airport/airplane hassle with my almost two year old).

But for the most part, the trip was really fun for the grown ups as well as the kids. Really, all of our trips with our kids have turned out pretty well, although there were some dicey moments in the Wichita trip, before we realized that we needed to back off on the potty training for the duration of the trip.

Now, a lot of this is just luck. In fact most of it is probably luck- we happen to have two good little travelers on our hands. Honestly, Pumpkin may be a more patient traveler than I am.

Perhaps a little of our traveling success might be due to things we do, though, so I thought I'd share some tips, in no particular order:

1. Plan like crazy.

Seriously. Plan the trip, then plan some more. And then some more. Know where at least one decent playground is in each city you are visiting. Google maps and Google Earth are big helps in this regard- you can even zoom in and check for swings if you happen to have a little swing addict (like we do). Have several family-friendly restaurant options identified ahead of time- you don't have to use them if you have time to stroll around and look for whatever restaurant looks best. But sometimes you just need to get to an acceptable restaurant fast, before your kids go from looking forward to lunch time to melting down due to hunger.

And speaking of restaurants....

2. Brew pubs are excellent places to take kids for meals.

I explained why we love to go to brew pubs in my last post. In short: they are generally noisy enough that my kids are not the loudest people in the restaurant, the beer mellows everyone out- us and the people around us, and they almost always have kids menus. Oh, and we like beer.

I am not a huge foodie, so we eat at chains, too. Sometimes, something familiar is what your kid needs. Chains can also usually be relied upon to have the mechanics of serving kids down- bringing the kids' food as soon as possible, for instance. The really good ones even know to let it cool in the kitchen for a bit before bringing it to the table.

3. Know which parts of your kids' routines can be messed with, and which can't.

For us, breakfast is sacrosanct. It needs to happen as soon after Petunia wakes up as possible. Almost everything else has some wiggle room, but not breakfast.

4. Try to stay in suites, if you can afford it.

The extra space is nice. And a door to close on your sleeping kids, allowing some grown up time on the vacation- even if you just use it to plan the details of the next day without a 4 year old asking "Why, Mommy?" every 20 seconds- is priceless.


5. Pack distractions for the travel time.

The magna-doodle has served us well here, as have the felt boards my Mom made for the kids for a return trip from Arizona. It is also handy to have something completely new for the trip. The night before our trip, I had to run to the drug store for some things, and on a whim, I bought a little princess coloring book on a plastic frame for Pumpkin. She loved that thing, and colored in it during most of our drives on this trip. Some of that was pure luck- but some of that was me knowing that she loves to color, loves princesses, and is always interested in something new, so there was a good chance she'd like that toy.

6. Be realistic in your expectations.

We don't try to take the kids to art museums yet, because Petunia is too little to understand how to behave in one and I am too sensitive to take her anyway, and just ignore the glares from other people. (Typing that sentence made me think that perhaps it is time I found the time for a trip to an art museum with Pumpkin, though- she is old enough to perhaps behave, and I'm curious what she'd think of it.)

We have also skipped many things we'd like to do just because the timing didn't work out. For instance, we drove through downtown San Luis Obispo on this trip and both thought it looked like a great little downtown that we would have liked to explore. Unfortunately, we were there at nap time and Petunia was snoozing happily in the back seat. We could have woken Petunia up, strapped her in her stroller, and hoped for the best- but chances are we would have gotten a meltdown, so we just made a mental note that we'd like to go back someday.

However, we know that meltdowns will sometimes happen, and we try not to let them get to us. It is unrealistic to expect the kids to behave perfectly for ten days straight. They certainly don't do that at home, so why would they do it on vacation? That is actually so important that it deserves its own list entry!


7. Remember that they meltdown at home, too.

Pumpkin threw a couple of impressive fits on this vacation around clothing. She wanted to wear shorts but it was too cold. She wanted to wear a certain shirt, but it was already filthy. Etc. But she throws fits about her outfits at home, too.

Petunia has been known to ruin a dinner time by crying loudly for a show while the rest of us try to finish our food (we have a rule: no TV while eating). So, while I would have preferred not to have to resort to tag team eating so much on the trip (one adult eats while the other walks around outside with Petunia, then we switch), I can't really say that dinner time disruptions are a unique feature of travel. They are a feature of having a two year old.

8. Plan in lots of park visits

As I said above, we always do some research and know where the local playgrounds are. We visit a playground almost every day when we're traveling, often for afternoon snack. I suspect that the play time helps the kids behave better during other times, and we've actually really enjoyed seeing the different parks in various places. I'll be writing more about the Dennis the Menace playground in Monterey. There were also some really good parks in Portland and Kaua'i (I didn't write about the Kamalani playground there, but it was pretty cool). Even better, hanging out at a playground with your kids is a great way to meet some locals, who might give you some good tips- we found both the Jamison Water Park mentioned in my blog post and the Portland brew pub run by the Deschuttes brewery (which was so great we went there twice) thanks to some advice from a friendly dad in a local playground, who struck up a conversation with Hubby while Pumpkin and his son played, and I shopped at Powell's.

Those are my tips and tricks, but I know we don't have it all figured out... so please, chime in via the comments. What are your tips and tricks for traveling with little kids, and enjoying it?

Back Home

Last week, we were on vacation at my parents' house in Arizona. It was a good trip- we got to see a lot of family and some friends, Pumpkin had a blast with her Mimi and Boppa, and Petunia got to see what its like to have enough grown ups around to ensure that she is constantly entertained (at home, she has to amuse herself a lot, while we deal with her far more vocal older sister). Hubby and I got a night away in a local hotel for our 5 year anniversary, too.

We drove over in our new Mazda 5, which was great. It easily held all of the gear we have to travel with these days. It was nice to be able to go out visiting relatives and what-not in one car. The "way back" seat in the Mazda 5 is not luxurious, but it was certainly comfortable enough for short trips around town.

Both girls did fairly well on the drives, too. The drive between San Diego and my parents' house (in the Phoenix area) is about 6 hours if you don't stop. On the way over, we left after dinner and stopped in Yuma for the night- Yuma is roughly half way between San Diego and Phoenix. Petunia slept the entire way, and Pumpkin fell asleep after an hour or so. They both did OK in the hotel, but Petunia started our day bright and early by waking up and refusing to go back down at 4:30 a.m. We were on the road by about 8 a.m., but had to take a couple of longish potty breaks, so didn't get to my parents' house until lunch time.

On the way back, we left after lunch, having convinced Pumpkin that the Birdie would find her if she took quiet time in the car. She slept most of the way to Yuma, and played with her magnetic doodle thingy the rest of the way. Petunia slept. We stopped for about an hour in Yuma at a really great park. Pumpkin had fun on the playground, and Petunia had a chance to sit in the shade and move around a bit. Then we drove to El Centro, which is about an hour from Yuma), for dinner. After dinner, we changed the girls into their PJs and headed home. Petunia fussed a bit but then slept the rest of the way. Pumpkin played with her magnetic doodle thingy a bit more, and then slept the rest of the way. Both transferred to their beds fairly easily.

All in all, we're feeling like we worked out the timing pretty well. Of course, we'll try to do it again sometime and it will go miserably wrong... we know this was more luck than anything else. Only luck can explain how both girls managed to sleep through the blindingly bright lights and stop and go traffic associated with the Border Patrol checkpoint we had to go through last night. (These checkpoints are an annoying side effect of our current approach to immigration and border enforcement- all traffic stops under bright stoplights and a Border Patrol officer looks into your car. We are always waved through almost immediately. I imagine that they are even more annoying if you have to stop for a chat with the agent. We went through one on the way over during daylight. I still do not have a good answer for Pumpkin's question about why we had to stop and talk to the nice man.)

I've got some trip stories to post, and more posts kicking around in my head, too- for instance, I have some more thoughts on feeding a picky eater that I want to write up. But Hubby has convinced me to take advantage of the fact that we've already disrupted Petunia's sleep environment to start the process of moving her out of our room. She's asleep in her crib, in her own room, right now. Since she's currently waking up 2-3 times a night, I should probably get to bed. I'll have to actually get out of bed and go down the hall to her when she wakes up tonight! (The cosleeper is still set up, and I suspect she'll finish the night in it- I don't want to undo all the good rest I got on vacation in one night.)

I know it is time to move Petunia to her own room. She is almost 7 months old now, and I actually suspect she'll sleep better in her own room- we seem to wake her up when we go to bed. But I can't believe my little baby is so big. Transitions are hard on me, too!

Another Good Trip

I posted some travel lessons after our first real vacation with Pumpkin, taken when she was almost 16 months old. I didn't post any tips after our trip to Kaua'i when Pumpkin was almost 21 months old, but I think the main lesson learned on that trip was that if you start out the trip with a tummy bug, it is probably not going to be the idyllic family get-together you envisioned. However, despite the tummy bug, that vacation went pretty well. We have just returned from a very good trip to Oregon with Pumpkin, who is now almost 26 month old. I think I may now declare that Pumpkin is a good little traveler. She takes after her Daddy on that one- I love to travel, but I actually tend towards a certain amount of grumpiness about the actual travel process. Pumpkin, on the other hand, loves going on airplanes and also did pretty well on the car trip portions of our vacation.

I'll come back and write a trip story about Oregon later this week. I definitely need to do that, since I forgot my travel journal, and so do not have any notes from the trip. I like to write things down so that I don't forget the little things that really make the vacation.

Tonight, though, I'll just update my travel lessons from that earlier post. First, the things we got right:

1. We planned the driving portions of the trip to roughly coincide with Pumpkin's naptime. This means that we only drove about 2 hours per day. Pumpkin usually only napped for about an hour of that. At first, this made me very nervous, since she usually takes a good 2 hour nap. She did fine with the shorter naps, though, and also did fine with looking out the window telling us what she saw when she was awake. ("Oh! I see trees!" or "I see train!")

2. We came home yesterday, which gave us today (Memorial Day) to catch up on our errands and to let me catch up on my rest. We would have loved to have one more day in Portland, but I think the recovery day at home was more important.

3. We bought some of Pumpkin's favorite snacks once we got to Oregon. Many a delayed meal was saved by Goldfish ("I wan' fishies").

4. Brewpubs are great places for family meals. They are noisy enough that no one will notice your toddler's natural enthusiasm, they always have kids menus, and they usually have good beer to help keep the parents mellow (or in our case, keep the Daddy happy, since Mommy is pregnant).

Some things we didn't get so right:

1. I wrote in the original travel lessons post that we should have looked up the location of playgrounds before the trip. Well, I did that this time, but discovered that just looking them up isn't enough. We should have printed maps to the playgrounds, or at least we should have written down locations. My memory is not what it used to be, Hubby's has never been good, and hotel personnel are surprisingly bad at giving directions to playgrounds. I actually have some ideas kicking around in my head about how to make it easier for traveling families to find playgrounds. Maybe I'll have time to do something with those ideas someday!

2. It is worth the extra money and effort to find a two room suite everywhere you stay, unless you want to go to bed when your toddler does. We had suites at a couple of our stops, and those were definitely the better nights for us.

3. Even our "leak-proof" sippy cup leaked milk on the plane ride up. On the way back, we just asked for milk from the flight attendant. That worked much better.

4. Frequent brewpub trips (see item #4 on the things we got right list) are really frustrating if you are a pregnant beer lover. Even if you are a pregnant beer lover who can't stand the thought of alcohol- with both this pregnancy and my first one, I completely lost the desire to actually drink once I got pregnant. However, I learned on this trip that I can still miss the idea of a nice, relaxing beer.

A Good Trip

We took Pumpkin to Seattle last weekend. The weekend had a lot of firsts in it: our first trip to a city other my hometown with Pumpkin, Pumpkin's first plane ride, Pumpkin's first boat ride (the ferry to Bainbridge), Pumpkin's first night in a hotel.... One of the most surprising thing about the weekend was how well it all went. We did several things right:

1. We had bought a cheap umbrella stroller to take on the trip. However, at the last minute, I decided that we should take her regular "city" stroller (also a relatively cheap stroller, at least compared to her off-roading jogging stroller), because the seat in her regular stroller reclines. I had a vision of Pumpkin napping in her stroller while we sat in a brew pub and drank beers. This didn't really happen- she certainly napped in her stroller. She likes to sit very upright, with her arms on the tray that hooks across the front of her stroller (as shown in the photo). When she got tired, her little head drooped down, until it was resting on her arms. I would stop, gently tilt her back into the seat, and then recline the seat before continuing on her way. However, she almost always woke up when we stopped for drinks. I still got a beer or two, though- Pumpkin was generally happy to sit in a high chair and eat crackers while the adults drank beers.

Even if my vision did not come true, taking the reclining stroller was a very good idea, because it meant that Pumpkin could nap while we walked around and were tourists. The better touristing definitely compensated for the little bit of extra hassle in the airport (the stroller only folds flat with the seat reclined, so folding it down for security or when boarding was not as fast as it would have been with the umbrella stroller).

2. We took lots of snacks. We had all of her favorites with us, and this meant that she would always eat something when we were at a restaurant, even if she wouldn't eat the restaurant food.

3. We made an effort to find places where she could run around. On Friday, we stopped after a long stretch of stroller time and let her explore Pioneer Square. For those who don't know Seattle, this is a pleasant square with trees and chairs... and homeless guys. Pumpkin made friends with a lot of the homeless guys, who seemed to appreciat eth joy she took in the birds in the square. One guy in particular just broke into the biggest grin every time she came near him. Several also offered her advice, mostly along the lines of listening to her mother. She has not shown any signs that she plans to heed their advice.

4. We requested a crib for Pumpkin. This allowed us all to sleep better. Pumpkin is a very active sleeper, and since we aren't regular co-sleepers, I don't tend to get very much sleep when I'm sharing a bed with her. We did bring her into bed with us when she woke up at 5:30 on Saturday. She nursed, and then snuggled in and went back to sleep- and we all slept until 7:30. The quality of sleep was one of the biggest surprises of the trip- Pumpkin slept better than she does at home. It was wonderful.

There were also some things we could do better next time:

1. We didn't eat dinner early enough. We always had the best intentions, but things kept coming up that kept us from getting to dinner "on time". This meant that Pumpkin was pretty hungry by the time we sat down at a table, so she tended to fill up on the bread at the table or the snacks we had with us.

2. We didn't think to ask about a fridge or a bath tub when we booked the hotel. A fridge would have meant that we could have had cold ice packs to use to keep milk cold for Pumpkin during the day. As it was, we had to keep asking restaurants to rinse out her sippy cup and put fresh milk in it. And no matter how carefully we asked, they always filled the cup to the top. Pumpkin had no hope of ever finishing all the milk they gave her.

No bath tub meant that we had to try to give Pumpkin her first shower on Friday night. She was NOT impressed, so we skipped it the next night, and made a note to practice taking showers at home.

3. It would be better to get Pumpkin her own seat on the airplane. She would still probably have wanted to walk up and down the aisle several times on the flight to Seattle, but having her own seat would have made it easier to entertain her while we were seated. She is just a little too big to sit on my lap and have the tray table down, so it was hard to let her color with the special mess free markers I'd bought, which only color on the corresponding special paper, and we kept dropping toys and books.

On the way back, Pumpkin fell asleep and slept most of the flight. I still wished for her to have her own seat, though, because I could hardly move for the entire flight. However, I did manage to drink a ginger ale, which is more than I managed on the flight up.

4. We should have looked up the location of playgrounds in advance. We never found a playground for her in Seattle. We took her to our neighborhood playground when we got home on Sunday, and she seemed especially happy to be there. It was silly that we didn't find playgrounds in advance- I'm pretty sure that it would be very easy to do on Google maps.

Overall, we judged the trip to be a resounding success. Pumpkin really seemed to enjoy riding around in her stroller checking out the new sights. I enjoyed seeing things with her enthusiasm- it has been too many years since I looked at a bird banking in the draft from a ferry with the proper awe or appreciated the giant concrete balls serving as a traffic break for a building for their slalom course potential. Pumpkin quickly sorted me out on these points, and many others. I'm looking forward to more trips with her. I know that can't all be this good,
but now I also know that they certainly won't all be as bad as some of the horror stories I've heard.

The First Plane Ride

Posts might be even sparser than usual around here this week- Hubby and I are busy trying to plan for Pumpkin's first plane ride. We are going to Seattle at the end of the week. For this first, relatively short trip, Pumpkin is riding on my lap. But part of the point of the trip is to practice for a trip to Hawai'i that we are planning at Christmas time, and on that trip, she'll have her own seat.

Being the geeks that we are, we've googled for advice. This post was helpful, as was this packing list. Sadly, I couldn't find anything about this on Ask Moxie, my source for all other parenting wisdom. If I had my act together, I would have sent this to her as a question a week or two ago, but it seems a bit self-absorbed to hope that a question I sent in now would get answered in time to help. So anyone in my much smaller readership who has advice- let loose in the comments! I'd also love to hear of any ideas for cool things to do in Seattle with a 15 month old who likes to run (walking is so last month....) and play with balls. So far, we know we'll go have a drink in the space needle, if they do that sort of thing- we have a tradition to maintain- and go to Pike's Place Market. We'll probably also check out the Children's Museum, because we are staying right there. Beyond that, who knows?

Our Favorite Gear

Like many people, I find planning for a trip almost as much fun as taking one. Luckily, my husband agrees. It is no surprise, therefore, that we spent a good deal of time researching and choosing the gear to take with us on our big trip. Of course, some of our purchases were more successful than others. Since several people have asked me about this, I decided to post a short list of some of the best gear we took with us.

Best Luggage
We liked our travel packs, but the hands down winners in the best luggage category were the various packing cubes we used to organize our clothing in gear inside of our packs. Eagle Creek makes packing cubes in a variety of sizes, as do some other companies.

Best Clothing
My best clothing find for this trip was the Macabi travel skirt. I searched extensively for a good, versitile travel skirt before eventually settling on this one. I never took advantage of its ability to clip into shorts or pants, but I did love its practical fabric, reasonably flattering fit, and excellent pockets (in addition to deep regular pockets, the skirt has a discrete zippered pocket that I found perfect for my wallet). I bought the long skirt, thinking it would be more appropriate for our time in Muslim Malaysia. I was wrong, but that's another blog entry. If I were to purchase this skirt again, I would definitely buy the regular length. In fact, I may do just that before we take another lengthy trip.

My husband's best clothing purchase for this trip was a pair of Dockers hidden cargo pants. I think they are the Iconic Khaki style, but there is not enough info on the Dockers website to be certain. These pants have a large internal pocket with a zipper, which gave him the ability to carry his wallet or our camera in a secure pocket while still looking moderately formal. They also wore extremely well. He wore them frequently during our four months on the road, and he is still wearing them now that we have returned. This is not just because he doesn't like shopping for new clothes: the pants still look good. We never attempted a truly formal look on this trip, but you can get an idea of how good these pants look by the fact that when he got a new job that requires slightly more formal attire than his previous position (to which he could wear shorts and flip flops), my husband went out and bought another pair of these pants.

Best Medical Kit Component
Given my background in biomedical research, it is probably not a surprise to anyone that we had a variety of antibiotics and other medicines with us on this trip. I did use some doxycycline in China to cure a sinus infection, but most of our fancy medicines thankfully went unused. The oral rehydration salts we had in our medical kit were a godsend, though. We both got a nasty case of food poisoning in the Chiang Mai, Thailand, and were incredibly grateful for the rehydrating and nourishing properties of our oral rehydration salts, and also for the fact that we could get something with these properties without straying far from our toilet. In fact, I was on a diet consisting solely of Sprite and the oral rehydration salts drink (you mix the salts with clean water) for the one day I spent incapacitated from the food poisoning.

Luckily, we only needed the oral rehydration salts once. However, given their low-price and small size, I may never leave home without them again.

Best Gadget
We took my iPod, a handy radio that also served as our alarm clock, and the modern traveler's usual assortment of cameras and phones. Our favorite gadget during the trip, though, was definitely my husband's GPS. We used it at every stop. I wrote our latitude and longitude in my trip log, and we also to take "latitude pictures" such as this one of the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.


Best Toys
We were packing light, so didn't take many toys. The decision to use some of our precious pack space on our snorkels and masks was definitely a good one, though. Not only were we ensured a perfect fit whenever we went snorkeling, we were also able to have some very cheap days in Thailand. Having our own snorkels with us meant we could spend the day snorkeling for free-and there is some excellent snorkeling in Thailand!