First Travels

Unfortunately, Kaitlyn and I had to go to Wisconsin a week earlier than we were planning. My grandmother passed away and we were off for her funeral. The longest Kaitlyn had ever been in the car at one time was probably an hour. So this was going to be an adventure.

I packed the car with everything we would need the night before.

6am Sunday May 23, 2010. My hopes are to leave early enough where Kaitlyn will stay asleep in the transfer from bed to carseat. Goal, Shelbyville Indiana before stop one to feed Kaitlyn and myself. 1 hour 30 minutes.

Kaitlyn and Elmo ready for their trip.

Reality: We left on time. Kaitlyn woke up during the transfer and stayed awake. Wanting to be fed before we even got out of Cincinnati. 30 minutes later I am pulling off the road. I figured there is a McDonald's here, I can stop eat, feed and change Kaitlyn. Was a great concept except McDonald's did not open until 7am for the dining room. IHOP was open. The $3 breakfast just became $10.

Okay that was a bummer and we were back on the road at 7am. I had rented a car for this trip. After leaving IHOP I realized a few things about the car. 1. It has a 6 CD changer. Sweet I will not have to continually change CD's I can just put them all in. 2. The car has satellite radio. I will not be listening to CD's all that much. 3. There are steering wheel controls for the radio. Nice, I don't have to take my eyes off the road.

I was concerned about our travels, I hit fog by 7:15, and it was pretty heavy. But we kept on keeping on. We were out of state #1 (Ohio) by 7:30, not bad everything considered. By 7:35 we hit our first batch of construction. Now it was a Sunday morning so we were not dealing with much traffic at all, so the construction was not that bad at all. All of my concerns just kept me on my toes.

Our first stop was a little hectic. I had to get carseat with baby, diaper bag and purse out of car to go into Speedway to change her diaper. What made it hectic was finding the bathroom, waiting for it to be open. Thank God there was a changing table in there. We handled it well. With each occurrence I was gaining confidence.

One thing that I was not concerned with was the fact that I had made this drive probably upwards of 50 times or so. I have lived in Cincinnati since December 2001. I have gone up to WI to visit my family several times. Not to mention the long distance relationship that my marriage started as. I knew I could handle the drive itself, just now with baby.

We stopped at a rest stop to take a break. Get Kaitlyn out of her seat, eat and give me a rest too. We were there half an hour or so. You see funny things when you are going across states. The man parked next to my car had decided to take a nap in his back seat. Well I guess he forgot he had child locks on his car because he locked himself in the car.

Back on the road, back to a sleeping baby. We finished Indiana, state two at 12:45 est. I stopped for lunch which was another break for Kaitlyn. When we got back in the car Kaitlyn slept all the way to Waukegan, IL This was a 3 hour nap or so. Of course she had to wake up during the part of I41 where there is no place to stop on the right side of the street and everything is on the left. And you can't get to them when you are traveling north. Finally came upon a McDonald's and we stopped.

We arrived in Milwaukee around 3:30 central time. Traveling with baby added about 2 1/2 hours to the drive. Not bad, not bad.

Kaitlyn was surprisingly good both to Wisconsin and home from Wisconsin. I think she was better on the way home because nothing sticks out. We left at 6 (central) in the morning and got home around 3.

How Kaitlyn spent 90% of her trip in the car.

This trip definitely built my confidence in travels with Kaitlyn. We are planning to go back in August, hopefully it will all work out.