My Road Trips

A Little History

Tennessee Horse Back Riding

Nashville, Tennessee – 1993

As a little girl, in the early 80’s, the first road trip I remember taking was from Indiana back down to Florida where we had moved.  I don’t remember much of the trip as I was real young.  I just remember that I was very sick during the trip due to food poisoning.  As a kid, we didn’t really take road trips or vacations much as we were pretty poor and couldn’t really afford to travel.

I made a few road trips as a teenager that I remember bits and pieces of.  One of the trips was to Indy to visit family.  I remember driving through the beautiful Smoky Mountains that trip and horse back riding in the mountains, I think in Nashville.  There was a trip to North Carolina that I vaguely remember.  And a trip to Hilton Head, South Carolina which was a lot of fun.  I loved the beach there.  And I remember a trip to Baltimore, Maryland.  Actually, I got to tour the White House on that trip.  I think these trips began my love of travel.

As a young adult, I travelled from Texas to Florida and vice versa a couple of times.  One time, I took a road trip from Cheyenne, Wyoming to Los Angeles and then to San Francisco, California before going back to Cheyenne where I lived at the time.  Unfortunately, most pictures that were taken on those trips have been lost over time as I moved around so much.  I think I lost most of them in a storage unit that flooded.  So there’s no real proof of those trips.  Just memories and old maps.

I recently discovered Roadtrippers though, which has significantly changed the way I travel.  No more maps!

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Road Tripping On My Own

Executive Office Building

Executive Building – Washington, D.C. – 2013

Travelling without other friends and family didn’t start until 2010 when my company sent me to Atlanta, Georgia for a certification course.  I had only been on my own as a single mother for 3 years and I had never really travelled by myself without having the backing of the military if things went wrong.  So it was a bit of a scary trip.  It wasn’t a road trip, though.  My company trips always make me fly, unfortunately.  I didn’t do any sight seeing that trip, I was too nervous about things going wrong and not knowing how to handle myself.

But then in 2013, my company sent my to Washington, D.C.  My son was 6 years old at the time and stayed behind with his grandparents.  He told me that he’d always wanted to see Washington, D.C. his “whole life”.  All six years of it!  I knew right then that it was time to get him out and about.  He had only ever seen Texas and Florida.  We took a cruise in 2014 to the Bahamas with my mom which kicked off our travelling life for my son.  When we returned, I immediately started researching and planning a road trip for my son and I to take to Washington, D.C.

We ended up taking that trip in 2015, right after our New Orleans trip.  Seriously… like a week after.  The New Orleans trip wasn’t a vacation trip, but the D.C. trip was and boy howdy did we have a good time!  It was the very first trip I planned using the Roadtrippers site.  Even though I had the trip well planned out, I was experiencing medical issues during that trip that made it especially hard for me to do much walking.  I was in such pain by the end of the trip that we ended up not seeing many of the stops we had planned to take.  But it was still a great trip.  And every trip afterward was well planned out, in advance, with Roadtrippers.


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My Trips

Planned TripsFull disclosure… I have many more trips planned than I’ve actually taken.  Whenever I start feeling burnt out with work or life, I sit down and start planning a vacation…without dates.  I guess you could say it’s somewhat of a stress reliever as it gets my mind off of my stress.

My son is a history buff, so I always try to find the battlefields and forts in the areas that we are travelling through so that we make sure to visit places that he’ll be interested in.  Me personally, I like the cheesy stuff and the beauties of nature.  So things like state lines, biggest whatevers, springs and waterfalls… mountains, those sorts of things.  And my favorite places to visit are the weird things that are off the beaten path.  I have a lot of fun just finding the different places to add to my bucket list.

We often have at least 1 other person tag along, usually my bestie, so some of my pictures may include others.  And some of my trips have specific stops that are appealing to whomever is travelling with us and may not fall into our interest categories above.

So, I’ll share with you the trips we’ve taken as well as the trips I’ve planned.  But there are so many, it will take me some time to get them all written out here, please bare with me.

Trips I’ve Taken

The trips below are the road trips I’ve taken since my son was born:

  • New Orleans – June 2015
  • New Orleans – July 2015
  • Washington D.C. – July 2015
  • Puerto Rico – June 2016
  • Savannah, GA – February 2020

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Trips I’ve Planned

Since I’ve planned these trips but haven’t taken them yet, I haven’t written up my reviews of the pit stops.  Sorry about that, if only I had more time and money to travel!  When I take the trips, I’ll get the stops reviewed and link them below.

  • Christmas in New York
  • Europe Exploration
  • Grand Canyon
  • Key West
  • New Orleans (Again!)
  • Niagara Falls
  • Rocky Mountains
  • Route 66
  • Smoky Mountains
  • United Kingdom
  • Washington D.C. (Again!)
  • Yellowstone National Park (Again!)

 

Life events, hurricanes, medical issues, and a global pandemic have halted my travel for the past several years.  We were able to started our Key West trip in August 2019, but Hurricane Dorian sent us home before we were gone 24 hours.  We were able to take a short trip in February of 2020 as well but then the pandemic stopped us from taking the rest of the trips we had planned for 2020 and all plans are on hold until it’s safe to travel again, but I can’t wait to get back on the road!

If you’re looking to plan a road trip, be sure to check out the Roadtrippers Trip Planner to see what all may interest you and get it added to your trip.  It’s amazing how many hidden treasures are out there just waiting to be explored.  Just, please… do me a favor and travel safe.