One of the blessings of being able to access social media 24/7 is the ability to instantly connect people with happenings as they occur.  It’s been fun to document our travels down to Florida using Facebook, Twitter, Gowalla and Foursquare.  It also provides a way for you to “follow us” and experience our journey as well!

Last Christmas we purchased at Walmart a mountable Mickey Mouse that utters different sayings, such as “Hiya pal!”, “Hotdog!”, and “Oh boy!  It’s going to be a great day!”  Before our trip we mounted Mickey on our dashboard, and Ben takes great delight in saying: “So what does Mickey say?” at different intervals.  It’s a cute way to include the Disney magic as we journey down to Florida.

Mickey in Chicago:

Mickey in Indianapolis:

It was a loooong drive through Indiana!  One of the interesting things we noticed involved the landscape.  Wisconsin, Illinois, and Indiana are pretty much the same, flat land, but once you enter Kentucky, the difference is noticeable with the huge hills, trees, and different terrain:

Just wanted to put a quick note in here regarding the tolls on the way down.  We paid $2.50 in Illinois:  $1.50 at Lake Forest, and $1.00 at the Edens.  We paid $3.50 for the Chicago Skyway, $1.50 at the Indiana Toll Road, and $.60 just after Gary.  $8.10 in total, which is quite a bit more than we remember paying two years ago.    We had put our toll money in an M&M tube, something that we’ve used in the past for the kids to do pressed pennies at Disney, and today remembered why it’s not such a cool idea.  All the quarters fell out of the tube!   Apparently the clasp is enough to hold M&Ms, but not heavy items like change.

We had a fun picture to share.  We saw this sign after we left the Kentucky Welcome Center:

Another Clermont sign!  And speaking of welcome centers, we do believe Kentucky has the absolute nicest welcome centers of any state we’ve traveled through.  It puts Wisconsin’s rest areas to shame.  😉

We wanted to note a couple of items that have made our trip so much easier.  These were mentioned in an earlier blog, but the book The Next Exit provides valuable information about what restaurants and gas stations are at what interstate exits, and it allows you to plan upcoming rest stops.  The other item is the Verizon Navigator (GPS) function on the iPhone.  Once you are located in a city, it gives you all possible options in terms of shopping, restaurants, gas stations, etc, and will navigate you there.  While very helpful on the way down, it will prove invaluable once we arrive in Clermont.  Verizon charges an additional $4.95 for their GPS service, but we find it easier and more functional to use than Sprint’s version.  (Currently we have phones from both providers.) The only negative we can say about it is the announcer’s voice is a little hard to hear.  As of yet, we haven’t figured out if there’s a way to make it louder.

The drive, while long, was so much more enjoyable because we were doing it at a more reasonable time frame.  And the postcard idea is working out brilliantly.  The kids are really getting into the idea, and it provides a great way for them to document the trip as well as work on writing skills.  But shhh, don’t tell them that!

Off to bed for tonight– be sure to follow us tomorrow as we journey through Tennessee and Georgia.