Final Gulf Coast Road Trip Post: Going Home

We had decided to go a different route home so we could see some more sites and explore different cities. So when we left Miami on Friday morning we drove north through Georgia, and up to Charleston, South Carolina, where we spent the night (by the time our trip was over, we had spent a night in Alabama, Mississippi, Florida, South Carolina, and Georgia. Daniel and I have already stayed in Louisiana, so now we have the whole southeast prety much covered).

We'd never been to Charleston before, and we really loved it. I'd definitely like to go back someday. Saturday was going to be a relatively short day of driving (we only had to get to Atlanta, GA that night), so we spent Saturday morning in Charleston. We drove around for a little while, and then went on a boat tour out to Fort Sumter (where the first shots of the Civil War were fired). The fort is on a little island about a 30-minute ferry ride away from Charleston. I'm so glad we took the time to go see it - the kids loved both the ferry ride and exploring the fort/island.

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After lunch we got back in the car and headed to Atlanta. Our hotel was right next to a little mall, so we walked around for a little while, ate dinner, and then headed back to do a little day-before-Easter hunt in our hotel room. It was very low-key: the kids had decorated paper lunch bags to use as their baskets, and I didn't have any plastic eggs to put the treats in, so I sort of just scattered starbursts around the room. Also, after they were done finding all the candy, I made them give it all back to me and we combined it in a big bag to use for traveling treats the rest of the drive home. Luckily, they are still young enough to go along with stuff like that, and I didn't hear any complaints - I love when simple things like searching for starbursts in a hotel room are still super exciting.

The next day we drove to Jackson, Mississippi. We considered trying to make it all the way home, but it would have been about a 16 hour day, and there was a horrible storm system that we would have had to drive through (there were tornado warnings in Jackson when we got there). We decided to just stay the night in Jackson (which had been our original plan anyway), and I'm glad we did. It was nice to have some time to just relax in the hotel room and let the kids play/color, etc. After Henry and the girls went to sleep, Daniel and I even got in a game of Ticket to Ride with the boys.

The next morning we got up early, were out of our hotel by 6:00 a.m., and home in Austin before 3:30 that afternoon. It felt good to be home, but we still can't stop talking about what a great time we had. My kids (and Daniel) love looking at the map on our kitchen table and planning out future road trips, trying to fit in as many states as possible.

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