I was fairly certain that this was going to be the trip from hell.  Nothing screams WARNING! WARNING! Trouble Ahead, like the words ‘Family Vacation’ and it’s a known fact that traveling in close quarters for any period of time can leave the best of friends not speaking to each other.

But, we had a wedding to get to in South Carolina, air fare was astronomical, and since Jay had the week off, we needed to stop at school and pick him up, the car was the obvious, albeit most painful, solution. Ron, myself, Kylie and Jay squeezed into the Subaru with all our stuff and set off on a ten day road trip.

It was great,  we laughed, played games, ate deliciously bad for you food, sang and had an all round good time.  I’m so glad I didn’t bail on this trip.

So here are 5 rules for a successful road trip.

1. Expect the worse, the lower your expectations, the less likely you are to be disappointed.
2. Pack your sense of humor, decide ahead of time to make the best of anything that comes your way, this is the time to be flexible.
3. Stop often, 3 or 4 hours in the car is more than enough and an hour or two to stretch your legs will refresh and energize you.  We visited friends and hit some roadside attractions, even the tackiest (South of the Border), can be fun.Surprise!  Just dropping by
4. Dress comfortably,nice pajamas are acceptable, it’s pretty unlikely that you’ll run into someone you know, and if you do, Oh Well.
5. Respect your fellow travelers, shower, brush your teeth, empty your garbage at every stop  and don’t eat day old fish tacos in the car.

Really,  it’s all in the attitude.  We made Rob and Allie’s wedding on time, saw old friends and made some new ones. Together we saw parts of the country we never would have visited, and we grew closer. Take a road trip, it’s good for the soul.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 24th, 2012 at 1:59 pm and is filed under General Blog, Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.