Trip Down South

When we can, Ben and I love to celebrate our marriage by doing something special for our anniversary!  It’s not always, right on the date, but this year it was pretty close.  This year we took a ‘Trip Down South’ for our 4th anniversary!

Trip Stats {{INSANE!!!}}

16-day road trip 

3,520 miles, which is

59 hours of driving (drive-time hours, not counting stops!), or

a whole WORK WEEK AND A HALF!  just spent driving…  If you include a bit of stop time, that averages

over 4 hrs./day in the car!

Albia, IA

Our first stop was a mere 6 hours from home, to see my grandparents and so they could meet Maple!  We left home (and arrived there) on Tuesday, March 17th.  We spent the day Wednesday with them and my cousin Victoria and had a memorable time joining Grandpa on his daily trip to Hardees for coffee!

At 4pm we headed out for the longest leg of our travel – 17 hours according to the GPS.  We drove overnight so the kids would sleep, and they did.  It worked pretty well!  The last four hours or so feel SOOOOO long though!  We traded off driving some.  I slept about an hour and a half total; Ben got half of that.  We made it in 23 hours; arriving at 4pm on Thursday (due to the one hour time change to Eastern time).

 

 

Florence, SC

Thursday morning when we stopped somewhere in the TN/NC/VA area for our first meal out of the car – 2nd breakfast – we hit culture shock in a really fun way!  You can read about that in this post.  Hurray for making it down south!

We were in Florence to visit Randy and Kim who were like mentors to us during our time on the Logos Hope ship.  After unloading and taking showers, they took us out for a truly southern experience at Redbone Alley where we had shrimp and grits for the first time… AND LOVED IT!  I had a sweet tea marinated pork chop and it was AMAZING too!!!

 

Friday we toured the book warehouse at OM Ships headquarters (where Randy and Kim are still serving with the ship ministry, stateside).  I also was interviewed as an ex-crew member during their team devotion time, and we got to pray for some of the needs from the ship.  It was a special time to reconnect with many familiar faces, and also meet many leaders.

The book warehouse and processing center was mind blowing!  We did not realize how much else they do besides send containers full of books to the ship.  Their Amazon, website, and other orders support 40% of the ship ministry!  The missionaries who work in the offices and the warehouse work HARD!  The volume of books that such a small team handles is incredible!  And they do ministry within the ministry – having school field trips, short-term mission trips, and even organizing it so that people can do community service hours there.  Seeing the behind the scenes/back end of the ship ministry that we were with was definitely a highlight of our trip!

 

 

 

 

We had a lovely dinner at the Grebe’s home and it was special to meet their daughter, Ashley and her little guy (traveling through to be with her husband in FL at a conference), too.  We have a lot in common and I wish we would have had more time!  We had lots more delicious food and southern sweet tea!  {The only way that iced tea should be made!}  😀

The houses are all made of brick there, and the dogwood trees were flowering beautifully white.  There is still a lot of southern pride with the confederate flag flying quite a few places.  As long as we didn’t open our mouth, we could blend in, but as soon as we said or word like “uffda” or anything for that matter, our northern accents stuck out like a sore thumb.

 

Savannah, GA

Saturday we headed out for the 3 hour drive to our friends’ house in GA.  We must have hit the road that goes to Florida and we were swept along in the stream of all the other vacationers and snowbirds headed south!  We passed through some ramshackle areas that were very run-down, sketchy looking ghost towns, but for the most part, everywhere was beautiful and there were a lot of trees!  {Keep in mind, we live on the prairie!}

Colton and Claire (from England) are friends from the ship; another couple who met onboard!  We hadn’t seen either one of them in over 4 years, not since either of us got married and not since we’ve had kids!  Ole loved their pet bunny, Munchkin!  We stayed in their Purple Princess Guest Room.  They made special and fancy meals for us – another style of shrimp and grits {we are definitely bringing this meal to the north and going to make it at home!!!}, and a British roast meal complete with Yorkshire pudding (like a bread) and crumble with custard for dessert!  And a juice drink similar to Ribena that was brought all the way from England, and sweet tea. 🙂

 

 

 

 

The day we arrived was the first warm day we experienced, 81 degrees and HUMID!  And I loved it.  And Ben nearly suffocated! 😉

We enjoyed going to their church with them on Sunday, though Olaf was a bit overwhelmed by SO MANY little friends in his class at this large church!  We had a wonderful and relaxing time at the Bennet’s!

Monday we headed out, towards Alabama.  But first we went all the way east, to Tybee Island, to see the sea!  Since we were that close already, we HAD to go the extra 45 min. there to touch the ocean again!  It was so worth it.  It was cold and windy and grey, and we spent an hour on the beach anyway.  The waves were white capping and the undertow was insanely strong, even when I was just up to my knees.  It was beautiful.  I miss the ocean.

Our total drive was around 7 hours, plus stops.  We stopped at the U.S. Air Force Museum of Aviation on our way.  It was INCREDIBLE!!!  We could have spent a whole day there, but unfortunately only had an hour before they closed.  We would highly recommend going there!  The best part?  It is FREE!!!

 

There was a Huey helicopter and it reminded me of listening to the veteran at the library tell his stories.  For a movie about how helicopters were used, go here.  {Hint: home school history lesson for the day!}

 

 

Auburn, AL

We arrived Monday evening at Nate and Annika’s for a late supper of lasagna.  {I’m not sure why FOOD was such a big hit on this trip… maybe it was because with so much driving we were sick of fast food and snacky foods and home-cooked meals were the bomb, or maybe just because we didn’t have to make meals ourself!}  In any case, the lasagna was amazing, as were the Greek chicken pita wraps and grilled burgers we had later in the week.  We ate out at a Chinese buffet, Mexican restaurant, and for our 2nd only time at Chick-fil-A.

 

 

Auburn was our main destination since the primary reason for the entire trip was to visit Nate and Annika during Nate’s spring break.

 

Memorable times include…

• shopping, when Ben and Nate just about bought out the store at Radio Shack’s closeout sale – most things 95% off!

 

•  Ben and Annika (brother/sister) accidentally calling each other “honey” and “babe” throughout the week… {scandalous!}  Hahahaha!!! 😉 We got so many good laughs from this! 😛
• Seeing Women’s Hope Clinic and the Family Center (pregnancy resource place and parenting/other classes offered); sad to think what the many STI tests and pregnancy tests they do say about the college lifestyle.  But what a neat ministry!
• Nate’s dad had a business trip that brought him close by, and our visits overlapped!

• The toilet paper trees …it’s an Auburn thing!  Touring Auburn University campus and hearing a little about what Nate does in engineering {99.99% of it went over my head… :P}  He’s getting his Master’s.

 

 

• Getting sunburned Laying by the pool with Annika!  This was pretty much our only sunny day of the whole trip.  The rest of the days it was cooler and it was either overcast and/or rained a bit.  Let me tell you, I made the most of it!  Mostly on accident because I really didn’t think the sun was that intense or we were out there that long… I guess it’s been so long since I’ve been out during the summer (last two summer’s I’ve been pregnant) I forgot what the sun can do and how bad it hurts!  The water was too cold to enjoy swimming, but we did take a quick dip and even Ole braved it!

• Playing CatchPhrase
• Late nights hanging out and eating ice cream (after the kids were in bed!) 😀 We had ice cream just about every day!  No wonder I gained 5 pounds!

 

• Apartment living!  Both in SC and at Nate and Annika’s we got to experience the simple life of apartment living!  No yard to mow, no outbuildings to keep up, no farm animals to take care of, no gravel roads {amazing how clean our car stayed – for TWO WEEKS!!!} and a fancy clubhouse with a pool!  Quite different than in the country!
• Dumpster diving – I was NOT THERE, but Ben will definitely want me to list this!  This was a sibling duo activity, and one of Ben’s highlights, LOL!  As you can tell from the picture, they went to the “chip dumpster!”  {Don’t worry, everything was sealed!}

 

• Garage sales on Saturday.  We got so much stuff between this and Ben’s deals at Radio Shack, we had to buy a trailer!  {Ok, not quite; we’ve been on the lookout for a trailer for some time now and happened to find the right one on Craigslist thanks to my great deal-finding husband!}
• Getting to meet the McClendens, (after hearing so much about them!) a sweet, Godly couple involved in Nate and Annika’s life.

 

 

 

It was SO, SO special to give Ole and Maple this opportunity to really bond with their aunt and uncle Carson!  We also had a lot of laughs watching Ole and all his antics and personality come to life as he warmed up to them!  And his hair – his hair was CURLY down south!!!  Must have been the humidity.  Who was this kid?  He did not look like my child!!!  Haha!  It was super cute!

 

 

 

 

 

 Nashville, TN

Monday morning we said our sad goodbyes and headed north, once again getting caught up in the flow of motorhomes, RVs, cars and vans with toppers, bikes and trailers (we were now quite in style with our new trailer!); this time bound for the north, like the geese before us.

Our last stop was Financial Peace Plaza (recently changed to be known as the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions) in Brentwood.  This was the “just us” part of our trip for our anniversary. 🙂  After much searching and deliberating, we settled on a hotel (they are very expensive and very many to choose from).  We splurged and got a room with a jacuzzi tub… so we didn’t have to trek to the pool to take the kids “swimming.”  {I know you might be rolling your eyes and thinking ‘yeah right,’ but this is true because it was a compromise between Ben, who could care less about a pool, and me who loves to take the kids swimming!}

 

It was special that 3 and a half years after first going through Financial Peace University we got to see where the radio show is broadcasted from and meet Dave Ramsey.  Like any other famous person, it is a quick handshake-sign book-picture, but still, it was cool.  We are really thankful for all we have learned and the unwise mistakes we have avoided due to the teaching from Dave’s Financial Peace classes and books!  We feel so blessed!  Like a favorite teacher from high school or the college professor who makes complicated things easy to understand, we appreciate the practical steps and suggestions that make a great starting point for discussing and developing your own principles for money stewardship.  

I was a little surprised that the lobby, bookstore and cafe are all pretty small, it’s just their office building, really.  Martha’s Place (the cafe) has fancy coffees and other specialty drinks and cookies… all FREE!!!  Can you guess what I had??!  Sweet tea! 😀

They also video the show and stream it live online.  So at any point during your time in the lobby, you might find yourself on video!  {This is actually a bit stressful with two small kids!}  Ole required THREE cookies and tons of sweet tea throughout the duration of the time to keep him relatively still/quiet.  We got to celebrate with a couple who did their debt free scream live there that day!  We also got to talk with quite a few team members  – they were all so personable and fun to chat with!  We stuck it out the WHOLE THREE HOURS of the show!  It was surreal.  It was special to have friends and family texting us to let us know they saw us on the live video broadcast (especially when we hadn’t told people ahead of time what day we were going to be there).  The icing on the cake was when Dorothy, the sweet lady from the bookstore/cafe, GAVE us one of the items as a gift (the most expensive one too – worth $30) when we went to purchase a few little trinkets.  Wow!

Screenshots of us on the show:

 

AND… they had baby changing tables in the restrooms!  Something that I found was very rare many of the places we went down south (restaurants, including Chick-fil-A, etc.).  They also had special ‘reserved parking’ for expectant mothers. 🙂  It was also neat to see nice cars in the parking lot right next to beater cars… and there were not many beater cars in the fancy city of Nashville!

We didn’t have time to see much else since we decided to only stay one night instead of two so we could get back home for work, but overall it was a modern, high-class city and people were dressed well, in either business or smart casual.  I also had my first experience eating at Chipotle!

We got to see this busy city at rush hour as well {bad timing :P}, as we drove through to head home Tuesday evening.  16 hours drive time, plus stops.  We drove through the night again, did our grocery shopping at an Aldis on the way Wednesday morning {after a night in the car, very little sleep, no shower, bad hair, a wild toddler tired of being restrained… you get the picture!} and made it home, praise God, Wednesday late afternoon!

 

Thanks to the gift of having friends and relatives to stay with, the whole trip (16 days) was under $600 – gas, hotel, food and a little spending money.

Take a look at the stats again at the top of this post and you’ll think we’re crazy.  We might be!  But hey, it was a ton of fun!  Seeing new states, visiting friends, and tasting new foods – like boiled peanuts!

 

 

If you’re still reading this {congrats, cause it was long}, and wonder how or if you could ever take a vacation like this with little kids??… YOU CAN!  {It is also possible to obey the laws and keep kids properly buckled in carseats ALL THE TIME the car is moving.  Yes, we stop to burp baby!}

My mantra for this trip?

Have kids.  Will travel.

Have you taken any epic roadtrips with kids?  Let me know in the comments!  Have questions?  I’ll do my best to answer them with our experience!

Until next time,

~Naomi