This post may contain affiliate links. This means that if a purchase is made by clicking on the link I may make a commission at no extra cost to you. Please see my disclaimer for more information.

When planning our drive across the country we used a website called Furkot. There were a few pros and cons to using this website. I liked how the site would show all of the different attractions along the route we needed to take. It would also change the route if I picked out something off the beaten path to go to. I could pick out the hotels we needed to stay at and book them without any problem.

What I didn’t like about the website was that it seemed to give a timeframe that was not completely accurate. So I planned out a trip with WAY too much driving each day. I thought it would work out but I was definitely mistaken.

Our first day we ended up leaving way later than expected. Our movers showed up a day later than expected so when we were cleaning out the house we were also showing the movers what to take. This means that we couldn’t really clean up the house until either late that night or early the next morning.

We opted to sleep a bit and cleaned the next day. This means that we did not hit the road until after noontime. We had a lot of driving to do as the hotel booked was in Ohio. Our first stop was supposed to be The Walkway over the Hudson in NY. We attempted to stop but the address given was in Poughkeepsie and we could not find the parking area.

So we stopped at a random McDonalds to eat and let the dog out. Once we were ready to head out, the next stop was to be in Black Moshannon State Park. We decided to skip this as we had wasted enough time and just wanted to get to the hotel in Oregon, OH. We didn’t end up to the hotel until 2am.

Since we had such a late night, we decided to not set the alarm and just sleep a bit. We woke up around 8:30. This hotel had breakfast included so we ate, let the dog out, packed up and headed to our first stop on Lake Erie. We arrived to the lake somewhere around 1030-11am.

The hotel was close to the lake so that was a short drive. The weather was overcast and windy. There was a small walkway near the lake and the Lighthouse that was there. We also walked around in the small park across the street. I’m not going to lie, Lake Erie was dirty! The water was so brown. I’m not sure why it was so gross but you could tell just from looking at it that it was dirty.

Then it was time to hit the road. Our next stop was Indiana Dunes on Lake Michigan. We didn’t leave Lake Erie until 11:30 so we didn’t arrive to Lake Michigan until 1pm. There were a lot of hiking trails around so we took the dog for nice little walk and spent about an hour at the park.

After that stop we decided that the hotel I had picked out in Kearney NE was just not something we could make it to. We opted to pick out a hotel from the road once we got tired. We were hoping to make up some time the next day.

While driving through Indiana was fairly uneventful, driving through Iowa we hit a storm. The rain came down and we were getting nervous that the road was going to flood. We got lucky and the rain stopped but we could see the river VERY close to the highway. Once the storm passed, we stopped at a rest area and booked our next hotel. We ended up staying at a Days Inn in Clive Iowa.

Just some food for thought, if a hotel room is cheap and available right now, its probably not the best one around. With this room we definitely got what we paid for. I mean, it was a clean bed and quiet so we could sleep but the shower was gross and definitely needed flip flops to stand in it. But again, you get what you pay for.

The next morning the alarm was set for 5:30am. We got up and headed out for breakfast. We decided that we were only going to stop at rest areas again in order to make up some time. We drove straight through Nebraska only stopping at rest areas.

Alright that concludes my first installment of our cross country road trip. Next up, NE to CA

The post Cross Country Drive Part 1 MA to NE appeared first on Just a Mom, Juggling it all.