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Tag: Road Trip

Gatlinburg, Tennessee

Gatlinburg, Tennessee

After a beautiful morning in downtown Asheville, we began the quick hour and forty-minute drive over to Gatlinburg, Tennessee, our home for the next 3 nights as we explored the beautiful Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The drive through North Carolina and Tennessee was beautiful. Thankfully I was ahead of Todd on this drive because I was able to warn him that the camper would not be able to make it on some of the curvy roads. He had to…

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Asheville, North Carolina

Asheville, North Carolina

After completing our morning hike around Abbott Lake at Peaks of Otter lodge on the Blue Ridge Parkway, we began our drive south to Asheville, North Carolina. The Blue Ridge Parkway actually continues into North Carolina and just passes to the east of Asheville. While that would’ve made for an incredible drive, we decided that we needed to save that drive for another trip where we had more time just to explore that area. We would hate to rush the…

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Natural Bridge, Virginia

Natural Bridge, Virginia

While living in Washington, DC, I got a lot of recommendations to visit Natural Bridge, Virginia. Natural Bridge is just a short 3 hour and 15-minute drive from the city. I didn’t know much about the area, honestly. But, once I read a little about Natural Bridge, I added it to our DC bucket list. Unfortunately, our weekends during the short time we lived in the area quickly filled up. So, when we began planning this road trip I figured this was…

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Peaks of Otter on the Blue Ridge Parkway

Peaks of Otter on the Blue Ridge Parkway

The Blue Ridge Parkway is an iconic roadway through the Appalachian Highlands with 469 miles of winding roadways and stunning vistas. The Blue Ridge Parkway is the Utah Route 12 of the East Coast. We drove Utah Route 12 last year through breath-taking Utah scenery on our cross-country road trip. This year we decided to drive a portion of the East Coast equivalent, the Blue Ridge Parkway. This drive connects Shenandoah National Park in Virginia to Great Smoky Mountains National…

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Lessons Learned from our First Road Trip with Toddlers

Lessons Learned from our First Road Trip with Toddlers

After 18 days, thousands of miles, and countless memories made, we completed our first cross-country road trip with our kids! It was an awesome adventure and we will most definitely do it again (and have since!). But we learned a few things on this road trip that we hope to implement next time. Space out the driving days throughout the road trip I talked about this briefly during my last few posts about the road trip, but this was our…

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Ruckersville, Virginia and Washington, DC

Ruckersville, Virginia and Washington, DC

Ruckersville, Virginia Our last several days of driving were long and scenic. As we approached the Appalachian Mountains, the fall colors became more vibrant and the beautiful farms and horse pastures that lined the highway were just beautiful.   We spent the night after St. Louis in a beautiful rural campground in Kentucky. We enjoyed a stunning sunset behind a field with trees painted in fall colors just outside our camper door. We continued our drive the next day to…

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St. Louis, Missouri

St. Louis, Missouri

If you’ve been following our road trip in chronological order, you’ve probably noticed that we crammed A LOT of sightseeing into the trip so far. Due to a planning error on our part, the second half of our trip was filled with many long days of driving and not a lot of sight-seeing. Luckily we learned from this and spaced out the driving more evenly on our next road trip. Leaving The West Behind After two very long days of driving, we arrived…

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Mount Rushmore, South Dakota

Mount Rushmore, South Dakota

When we initially started planning this road trip across the United States, the first location I knew I wanted to include was Mount Rushmore. I tried to include it on our trip to Yellowstone last year, but my husband didn’t approve the additional 8-hour drive. Who knew those western states were so big?! For me, Mount Rushmore is one of those iconic American spots that I had always wanted to visit. But, it’s a bit out of the way. In…

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Colorado – Garden of the Gods and Pike’s Peak

Colorado – Garden of the Gods and Pike’s Peak

Colorado is so beautiful, and we have spent some time here in the past. In 2009, we enjoyed a week of skiing in the Colorado Mountains. Todd came to Colorado with the boy scouts when he was growing up. I visited Colorado several times in high school on family road trips and with my high school choir. We love Colorado, and were really excited to explore some of the state with our kids! My cousin, Jim, and his girlfriend Meredith…

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Moab, Utah – Arches and Canyonlands National Parks

Moab, Utah – Arches and Canyonlands National Parks

We arrived in Moab late in the afternoon of Day 2 of the road trip after a very busy morning at Bryce Canyon and driving through Utah’s most scenic roads. Moab is the most convenient location to stay when visiting Arches National Park and Canyonlands National Park. The town is an ideal spot for anyone who loves adventure, as it’s located right in the middle of the two parks. We spent 3 nights at the ACT Campground located about 2.5…

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