by Kelly Wilbanks posted in Products & Prizes

One of the longest road trips I've taken with my oldest daughter Vivianne was a 9-hour drive from Yakima, Washington to Depot Bay, Oregon. She was a brand new 2-year-old, I was celebrating a birthday, and it was Father's Day weekend so we decided to hitch up our new (to us) tent trailer and spend those whale-watching Groupon tickets I'd purchased.
Our trip should have taken just a little over 5 hours. We were stopped a half hour into our trip by the FBI. They were just doing a training, but noticed as we drove by that we were dragging some chains. So, we stopped so my husband could fix the chains. Then we stopped for lunch at McDonald's, which turned into an hour-long ordeal because the front latch of our tent trailer had blown off while we were driving and my sweet Boy-Scout-of-a-husband decided to go back and find it. The next thing we had to learn as parents of littles was choosing age-appropriate adventures. Vivianne was asleep before we even saw any whales. It was stormy, wet and a little disappointing all around.
By then we were an hour and a half off-pace and hit Portland during Friday rush hour. It was the first time Vivi told me to settle down. I do not handle traffic well and dealing with a tent-trailer was new territory to both of us. So, 9 hours later with darkness settling over the land, we arrived at our campsite.
Travel sometimes goes like that. Our daughter was a champ, but we came prepared too. Since that exp...