This is by Far the biggest road trip we have taken!!!
I know this happened back in May, but I am finally able back to blogging and decided this would be a fun one to revisit and share. We did a 10 day road trip - and drove over 3000 miles!! We had a ton of fun and did something new everyday.
Bad news is I some how lost my log book for the trip that tracked times, miles and gallons of gas bought. Oh well. I do have the financial break down. Even with driving, free hotels, and not eating out.... I still don't want to revisit the carnage of spending.
- Day 1 - Driving to Sandusky Ohio and Lake Erie
- Day 2 - Driving from Sandusky Ohio to Kitty Hawk - Outer Banks NC
- Day 3 - Exploring Kitty Hawk - Outer Banks NC
- Day 4 - Taking Flight - Hang Gliding with Kitty Hawk Kites!
- Day 5 - Early Morning Beach and a Drive to Myrtle Beach
- Day 6 - Myrtle Beach Sunrise, Swimming and Skywheel!
Daily Tradition Continues - Sunrise for all!!
Well so much for the sun rise. It really sucked this day, but lets be honest, it was a driving day anyways, so I didn't mind. I actually let the kids sleep in. I woke up at 4:30 like usualy, looked out side and saw the rain and we decided, they didn't need to get up. They wouldn't know if the sun was up or not, nothing pretty to see. I was up for the sunrise, I just don't have any proof given the stormy skies.
Driving to Gatlinburg Tennessee
- 7 Hours
- 400 Miles
This was the big task for the day. Driving from North Myrtle Beach to Gatlinburg. It was only a 7 hour drive so not too bad, and we left right around the 9-10am time frame. I lost track of time because I was trying to get one more coffee before we hit the road.
Kids did great again, and we covered some beautiful country. If you look at the map, you can see I clearly did not go the most direct route. I happened to be talking to a coworker about my trip. Just so happened they had recently done a similar leg of a trip, and told me I had to take highway 441. While it would be longer, and slower, it takes you right through the smoke mountains, and gave you all the views that just never get old. Some of those vistas were hard to look away from.... and yet I didn't see that much as I was driving that narrow road with no shoulders staring down RV's in the other lane!!!
Tunnels
Here is one of the crazy tunnels you drive through. They were usually short, but I will say going from full sun in your eyes to darkness was really hard a few times. We made it though an dI was thankful the speed limit was like 25 MPH on the road. Any faster and I am sure I would have crashed with all the traffic and gawking we were all doing!
Gatlinburg
First off - this town is crazy. It is a full on looney toon vile of every cheap tourist attracting thing you can think of. Every over the top, massive, colorful and loud advertising you can cram onto one lonely main street, that you are forced to crawl down at slower than walking speed they have done it. It was actually impressive, and sad at the same time. There was so much stunning natural beauty but it seems most were attracted to the lowest common denominator of cheap tourist attraction/carnival sights there are. Sorry to bash on it, it was interesting, but at the same time overwhelming.
Sky Bridge
We did the Sky Bridge, where you ride an gondola up the mountain and then walk over a suspension bridge with some plexi glass panels you can look straight down. I will say, just paying for the ride up and views were enough, but of course we had to do the bridge. There were so many people clearly about to lose their collective S on the bridge it was fun to people watch. I never knew there were so many people afraid of heights. As far as my family, all my kids were fine, they acted afraid for a few min, the quickly realized it was no big deal and had fun with it.
View from the Top
Start of the Bridge
View of the bridge
Ride Back Down
End of the night,
After walking from our hotel, eating subway and doing the skybridge and walking back... we went to bed early... we were going to get up at an unholy time... and spend most of the day hiking... and then put another 6 hours in driving to the next stop.... We must carry on and cram more into this 10 day trip!!!! So far we have done a ton of different stuff and the kids have been having a blast. At this point we though we are all a little tired of sleeping in hotel rooms, and living out of the truck / luggage bags. We have tried really hard to leave most our stuff in the truck and only bring into the hotel what we need to shower, and change and roll out the next day. We like to keep it at lighte as we can.
Vacation Stats
Day 1 - Drive to Sandusky
- 575 Miles
- 9 Hrs
Day 2 - Drive to Kitty Hawk
- 678 Miles
- 12 Hrs
Day 3 Explore Kitty Hawke
- Sunrise
- Beach time
- Bodie Island Lighthouse
- Airplane ride
Day 4 - Hang Gliding!
- Sunrise
- Beach Time
- Hang Gliding
- Shopping/Beach/Pier Fishing
Day 5 - Sunrise and Drive to Myrtle Beach
- Sunrise
- 300 Miles to North Myrtle Beach
- More Beach Time
Day 6 - Sunrise Myrtle Beach - Beach Time and Sky Wheel
- Sunrise
- NO DRIVING ( Well just around Myrtle Beach Area)
- Sky Wheel
- Shopping
Day 7 - Drive to Gatlinburg and Sky Bridge
- Sunrise (err clouds)
- Drive 7 hours to Gatlinburg
- Sunset Sky Bridge Viewing
Day 8 Preview
- Sunrise (surprised?)
- hiking
- driving (shocker)
Vacation Stats
- Total Miles - 1943
- Total Time Driving - 32+ Hrs
