Does your husband or partner despise weekend road trips? Mine normally does, but I think a recent trip to Iowa may have turned it all around!
This past weekend my little family took a quick trip up to Des Moines, Iowa to visit some friends and celebrate a 5th birthday, and we decided to make a quick weekend getaway out of the trip. I want to share about it, because although my husband was totally dreading the trip, it turned out to be an awesome an awesome one! Normally, he doesn’t love weekend road trips because we come back exhausted, having spent way too much money, and trying to squeeze in too many activities. This trip was completely different.
We left at 9am Saturday morning, and arrived in Des Moines just before 1pm. I didn’t think that was too bad, considering we had to make three bathroom breaks in a three hours drive!
Our hotel, the Ramada Tropics, was just off I-35, and they luckily had a room ready when we arrived! We enjoyed a picnic lunch, and then hit the hotel’s water park for some fun! That afternoon we enjoyed some horse racing, since neither my husband or I had ever been (yes, we took our child to a horse track, and she loved it!). Then, we had a nice meal as a family, and back to the hotel for more water park time and relaxation.
Sunday we enjoyed church, and the birthday party we’d come into town for. We hit the road again at 3pm, and we were home by 6:30pm.
The whole way home my husband, of all people, kept saying what an enjoyable weekend he’d had. He never says things like that after a long road trip. He is generally complaining about all the packing, hauling, expensive meals, etc. But because this was such a quick, carefree, relaxing trip, he enjoyed it and even suggested we think about another weekend getaway in the month of June, maybe to Omaha or Branson!
So, the moral of the story is, if you can talk your partner into taking a quick weekend trip up to Des Moines, I think you’ll have a total blast, and maybe you can prove that weekend getaways can be a really fun time to spend together as a family, and it doesn’t have to be expensive or stressful.
If you have a really fabulous weekend travel destination, please send your suggestion my way! I’ve been Googling, but suggestions from real KC moms are always the best way to go.
I hope you all have a wonderful Memorial Day weekend. Go out and do something fun with the family, and also carve out some time to just enjoy each other and be together!
-Melissa
