We survived our first family road trip. Actually, to be honest, we more than survived! All I wanted was for it to be fun enough that we would want to do something like it again. It definitely had it’s rough spots (windy roads, two puking incidents, 100+ degree weather, and standstill traffic) but overall we were so incredibly proud of our kids with how well they did and I’m already thinking of all the future trips we could go on!
After driving through the night to get to Enoch, UT and spending two days at a D’Anna family reunion, we made our way back home and our first two national parks to our passport.
Our first stop was Zion National Park. We arrived at 6:00am in order to beat the heat and the crowds and while it was rough getting the kids up that early, I’m so glad we did it that way.
After our day at Zion we headed to our Airbnb just 30 minutes away. We are huge fans of Airbnb’s, especially since having kids. Both of the places we stayed at had two bedrooms so that the kids had somewhere to sleep and I love the hominess of Airbnbs.
We had another early start the next morning because there was a 12 hour drive ahead of us in order to get to Redding where our next Airbnb was.
In Redding we got our In-N-Out fix, a great night’s sleep and then were on the road again the following morning. This was definitely the roughest part of the trip because the road to the coast from Redding is rough. So windy and so. much. construction. The kids (mostly Rowan) were done being in their carseats so once we made it to McKinleyville, we had to stop at the beach as a morale booster. This was Rowan’s first beach experience and watching him twirl his feet in the sand was the best.
After our much needed break at the beach, we headed north to the Redwoods. I wish we would have had more time to explore here but it was still cool getting to see even just a snippet of this incredible park. It just gives us a reason to come back someday (but not until construction on HW 101 is done. Yikes.).
The best part of this trip was seeing how much fun our kids had and how they persevered through the rough patches. It made me proud and excited for all the adventures we get to have together.
The D'ANNAs 