Early this fall, we took a trip out East. It was originally a work trip for me {I was shooting a wedding in North Carolina} but we decided to make it a family road trip so we could sneak in some time with my sister and her husband. We hadn't seen them since they moved to South Carolina this summer and were missing them something fierce!
Unfortunately, Hurricane Matthew ripped up the East coast putting the Hilton Head wedding in limbo for a bit, so we delayed our trip by 12 hours and spent the night pondering our options. Do we go anyways? Is it safe? Should we just meet Brad and Alicia in the middle somewhere? What about packing up and going West for the week? In the end, the wedding was pushed from Hilton Head Island to Raleigh and we decided, despite the weather, that we would continue as planned.
So, well before dawn, we loaded the car, transported sleeping babies to their carseats and hit the road. I had purchased several new 'toys' to keep the kids busy, and we obviously had lots of snacks as well as DVD players for backup, but I must say, the first day of travel was amazing! We didnt' have any whining and I only used one toy each from the stash. Having done a long road trip with littles before, I know the way home is much harder than the way there so my plan was to conserve as many 'new' things as possible for then. We detoured to Metropolis, Illinois when we saw the sign on the interstate for a larger than life Superman statue. We knew the memory would be worth it for our little Superhero loving son in the backseat!
We didn't really have a 'stopping point' in mind for day one, but decided Nashville was the perfect place to stay for the evening. After about 10 hours on the road, we made it to the Nashville Zoo about 2p. We wanted the kids to be able to run off some energy after the long car ride. As it turns out, Nashville has a beautiful zoo with a nice playground, too! We had so much fun!!
After the zoo, we checked into a hotel, got cleaned up, and went downtown for dinner at Demos' Steak and Spaghetti House. It was nearly 8p before we went, but the kids did fantastic and the food was really good! We left dinner and went directly back to the hotel to get some sleep before leaving early the next morning...
We clearly didn't get so actually explore Nashville, so now Adam and I are itching to go back for a long {adults} weekend. Maybe we'll meet my sister and Brad there sometime?
