The Zaftig Chicks’ Guide to the Road Trip
by sylvia
A few weeks ago, Bianca and I decided we needed a vacation. Of course, I think that I should be on vacation all the time, and pepper in some work just to break up the monotony. But alas, this is reality, so we started to do some plannin’.
Since Bianca is with crumb (i.e., she has a kid, and I’m not talking goats here), we determined that a long weekend is all we could swing, since Bianca loves inconveniencing me.
- Pick a weekend – I personally like the Friday through Sunday trip, since Fridays are usually pretty dead around the office
- Pick a location or direction- how far are you willing to drive? Me and the hubs have done the “let’s drive North for 2 hours and find something to do and someplace to stay” when we first started dating. I’m a lot more “planny” now, so I like to find at least some hotels before we hit the road. And when you have other people with you who like to plan EVERYTHING (I’m looking at you Bianca) – certainly not the way to go. RandMcNally.com is good site to find some interesting things to do on your way to wherever you iz goin’!
- Find the closest winery - take a tour, a tasting, get a free glass, have some great cheese. Usually you can swing the tour and tasting for under $20, depending on the winery.
- Research the liquor laws- if your 2 or 4 or 6 hours results in you traveling to a different state (or even county), find out if they have “blue laws” or other such nonsense, that prohibits you from getting your drink on. Example: I took a trip with some friends to an island off the coast and we went to a bar (of course). I wanted to order a mixed drink, but they had a ban on liquor in that county. They could only serve/sell beer, wine & “malternative” beverages. At the time, that was a struggle for me. If you’re not complete lushes like Bianca and me, then you have nothing to worry about.
So, those are the basics. We’re leaving in 2 weeks, and have checked off all of the things on the list above. We’ll probably have to do some shopping so we can look super cute doing whatever we haven’t figured out yet. We just need to make sure to pack the liquor!
When Mr. Twistie and I have a day or two to ourselves, we are fond of picking a random direction and driving until we find something fun to do or a pleasant looking place to stay overnight.
Of course, if we want to go west, we pick a day when we don’t have much time. After all, when you on the San Francisco Bay…there’s not a lot of west to go.