We just got back from our first family vacation as a family of 3! We've traveled a few times with Cooper to go see family in Oklahoma, but we hadn't been on a vacation/trip other than that since David and I went to Boston in the Fall of 2016. So we've been talking and planning for a vacation since Cooper was born. We'd briefly discussed going on a trip last Fall, but then we had to pay for some car repairs, so that got pushed back. But when 2018 hit, we knew we wanted to go somewhere together and we started planning. We discussed several options and landed on going to New Mexico to spend some time in the Mountains. We looked at several locations and decided to spend a week in Taos. We booked a rental through VRBO and started planning. I won't share a complete day by day recounting of the trip, but I will have a few different posts this week. I thought I'd start with info about our travel days since that is the part I was most worried about with a 1 year old (who typically hates his car seat) and I'll share some of the things that made it a little easier for him and us!
We got up Saturday morning and loaded up. We fed Cooper some breakfast and then got on the road around 8:30. We decided we'd stop in Denton (less than an hour away) to get us breakfast, and Cooper second breakfast, before doing the rest of the day's drive. One thing we've found with Cooper is that if he's going to nap in the car, he typically has to get in the car already tired. So if we're traveling for several hours and he gets tired he will fight sleep forever. But if we stop and get out and then get back in the car, he'll usually fall asleep pretty easily. So we timed it so that our first stop would end around time for his first nap.
All packed up and ready to go! As long as the drive was, I'm grateful that we had our car so that we could take as much stuff as we wanted! We packed lots of snacks and games and toys.
After breakfast, Cooper looked at his photo book before he fell asleep. This is one of Cooper's absolute favorite things at home. I bought a cheap (like 50 cent) photo album from Walmart and then printed 4x6 pictures of family members and some of his favorite toys and things and put it together. It's one of his go tos at home, so I made him a new one with updated pictures for the trip. It really kept him entertained for a long time.
After his nap, he got out his photobook again. This time he spent some time ripping out the pages. Whatever kept him occupied was fine with us!
We stopped for lunch and walking around and then made our way to Amarillo for the night. This velcro board was a big hit and got us through the afternoon drive. When I was trying to plan for the trip, I searched Pinterest for road trip activities for toddlers/1 year olds. Almost every idea is about putting things in (putting pom poms in a container, a card drop, putting pipe cleaners in a cup with holes, etc.) and Cooper is more the destroying type right now, so I looked for ideas of things he could take apart and that would last him a little while. This one is a piece of wood from our garage, I put 2 long velcro strips on it and then found random small toys (that he's allowed to have) and put velcro on the bottom. The original activity I saw was for kids to take them off and put them on, Cooper just took them off, but it did keep him occupied quite a while. And then I put them back on and he did it again after one of our stops.
We spent the first night at a hotel in Amarillo. We got to town around 5, checked in, went to dinner, and then put Cooper down for the night.
Sunday morning we got up and head breakfast on our way out of town. Cooper was struggling with falling asleep for his morning nap, so we got out at the Texas/New Mexico state line to walk around and grab a picture. He fell asleep pretty quickly once we got back in the car. The rest of the morning he played with his photo book and velcro board again until we stopped for lunch.
Since we were sharing a hotel room and he could see us, Cooper was up a lot earlier than usual. We got on the road pretty early, but with the time change between TX and NM, we would have gotten to our VRBO too early to check in. So we decided to go a little longer way through Santa Fe to spend some time there. We grabbed lunch in downtown Santa Fe and walked around the plaza a little before heading to Taos.
We took the High Road to Taos which is the scenic byway between Santa Fe and Taos. Cooper slept a little on this drive and then tore apart his toy basket for a while. I also had set aside some of his new toys he hadn't seen in a while and put them in different containers that he could dump out.
We made it to our "casita" around 4:30 on Sunday. We unloaded the car and then headed out to get some groceries and pick up dinner. We were all ready for bed pretty early after 2 days of traveling! We broke up the drive to Taos into 2 days, each one being about a 5.5 hour drive (without stops) so that we could stop as needed along the way and not feel rushed. It really did work out well!
On the way home Friday I took very few pictures. Because Cooper was getting up early most mornings we knew we could get on the road pretty early for the drive home. So we packed up the night before we left and got on the road around 7:00. We decided to see how far we could make it in one day with the possibility of making it home Friday night. Cooper struggled a lot more with the trip home and by about 2 hours into our drive he hadn't slept at all and would pretty much just throw any toy I gave him. I was trying to hold out on some of the activities he hadn't seen so we could pace ourselves along the way.
As he was fighting nap, I gave him a box of bandaids that he had found in our bathroom at home, he enjoyed opening the box and taking all the bandaids out and then trying to tear them up. After I held his hand for a while he did finally take a nap--even though his longest nap in the car was about 30 minutes, it helped break up the day a little.
He woke up from his nap very angry (and tired) so I pulled out a new game. I had taken one of our old wipes containers and filled it with fabric scraps that I had. I've made lots of projects over the last couple of years and had a lot of extra fabric.
This one probably kept him occupied the longest. He would take the fabric out, look at it and then throw it! When we stopped for lunch I gathered up all the fabric I could find and filled the wipes contained up again. I was also able to reach a lot of the fabric he threw while we were driving so I could refill the activity.
Another favorite of his was tearing up magazines. We had a bunch of visitor guides that we got at the New Mexico state line on the way into town so I gave him those and he went to town! We ended up stopping in Wichita Falls on our way home and stayed the night there. Cooper actually was getting sick that day and we all needed a break from the car.
Overall Cooper did a lot better than I expected on our drive to New Mexico. He played pretty contently with just a few things. The drive home was a little more difficult, but I think that's the case for everyone--it's a much tougher drive coming home than going somewhere new and fun! Tomorrow I'll share about some of our time in New Mexico. Sorry for the long and wordy post, just thought I'd share some of what worked for us to make traveling easier. It feels a little crazy to do so much for this little guy, but it definitely made the trip better for all 3 of us! And there were still plenty of times where he just fussed and we pushed through and we all survived!
A recap:
*Planning the trip around naps and meals. Knowing Cooper needed to stop before his naps to get out a little and planning for that.
*Favorite activities included:
-Velcro board
-Photobook
-Containers with toys to dump out
-Wipes container full of fabric
-Bandaid box to empty
-Magazines to tear up
*I also picked up a toy phone from a thrift store for $2 and I took the batteries out of an old remote and would give him those when he was really getting restless-- they helped immensely!
*I forgot to mention--lots of snacks! We have snack cups and I'd fill them with goldfish, crackers, melts, dried fruit, raisins, etc. A snack would keep him occupied for a while too. His carseat was a mess by the end of the trip, but it was worth it!
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