Tennessee – 1st Trip
Our first family trip, or at least big trip, was to Gatlinburg, TN. Our eldest was 9 months old and we were ready to start dragging her with us to see new things and have new adventures. The total drive from our house was going to be 10-12 hours, so we decided to stop half way and check out the Cincinnati Zoo. I know some of you are thinking “Come on you really cannot make it in one day”? The answer is no, at the time there was no possible way of that happening. Looking back those two driving days felt like they would never end! Before leaving we tried to make sure we had everything we needed and then some for the trip. We always try to create a packing list for each trip, more or less from a master list. The drive down was actually quite peaceful as I recall, mainly because our daughter loved to sleep in the car. We ended up making good time and landed a nice hotel with a restaurant attached. After eating dinner and settling in for the night we were excited for some rest and a fun day ahead at the zoo……..
Morning came around after what was one of the worst nights of sleep we have ever had! At the time, our daughter did not sleep well at night anyway, add that to too much daytime sleeping and we had a horrific night. The stress from the night was compounded by fears of disturbing our neighbors. All of us got up angry and disappointed, to be honest my wife and I decided if the day did not improve we would head home and cut our losses. With the night behind us we hung our heads low and started the day with low spirits and sour dispositions.
Once at the zoo everything changed. It was like a light switch, we were new people compared to the glum family from the morning. If you have never been, the Cincinnati Zoo is one of the coolest zoos to walk around and remains my favorite. We watched elephants play and splash in water 20 feet away and got so close to tigers it felt like we could almost reach them. Feeling renewed and having faith in our trip again, we went back to the hotel for some fun in the pool followed up with great food and drinks. We went to sleep excited to start the next day.
As part of this blog and really the purpose of it, I wanted to add my thoughts on tips and tricks as it pertains to traveling with kids, at least from our experiences. I am by no means an expert and all kids are their own unique animals, but I hope to provide something for the reader to contemplate which will hopefully make your trip more enjoyable. I just now decided to call it Johnny’s Words of Wisdom.
Johnny’s Word of Wisdom – Sleep Schedules: I know this sounds so simple like “No kidding obviously we thought about this”, but my wife and I are really quite strict when it comes to our kids eating and sleeping schedules at home and this trip took us for a rollercoaster ride as it was really our first time deviating from our routines. I am certainly not suggesting you try to maintain your home schedules to a T, but to be aware of what happens if you don’t and be ready to be nimble with your days. Kids and babies will sleep when and where they please on vacation, fighting it is like trying to scream into the wind. My best advice, and you will hear me say this a lot, do not set your expectations too high and be flexible with how your days and nights will play out while away from home. We set ourselves up for failure this first night and not because our child’s schedule was disrupted, but by thinking everything would be just as it is at home and failing to understand the need for flexibility.
Traveling Through The Ages 