North Carolina Adventures

Addendum to yesterday's Recession Family Travel Tips:

We family road-tripped to Concord/Charlotte, NC just after school got out in May with three primary missions:

1) Gem mining in Hiddenite, NC - for our 8yo ADHD Phenom, who is an extreme rockhound and avid collector (of rocks)(in our 6th floor condo).

2) Geocaching in the NC outback - for our 14yo Puberty Angst Boy, who is an expert-level geocacher and lives to go search out the hidden treasures stashed all over the place by the high-tech scavenger hunt crowd.

3) Lowe's Motor Speedway in Concord, NC - for our 43yo NASCAR Enthusiast.
Not only did we get to visit and tour the racetrack (and gift shop!) in our continuing quest to visit (someday!) all of the active NASCAR Sprint Cup Racetracks (and bring home the tshirts!)...the Charlotte area is the cradle of NASCAR: 80% of Sprint Cup drivers call the area home, and most of the major teams have their shops within an hour's drive of Lowe's Motor Speedway, which is actually in Concord/Cabarrus County. We stopped by the Hendrick Motorsports Complex (drivers Jeff Gordon, Jimmy Johnson, Dale Earnhardt Jr, Mark Martin!) and drove The Dale Trail (stomping grounds of the late Dale Earnhardt Sr.) in nearby Kannapolis.

As far as the girls, 11yo Drama Queen and myself, we enjoyed the gem mining, the geocaching and Daddy's continuing NASCAR obsession. We also enjoyed the Discover Mills Mall, near the hotel, home to a NASCAR Speedpark - "the home of full-throttle fun for everyone!" While the boys raced go-carts and mini-cars, we got our ears pierced...and no, while I was tempted in the cradle of NASCAR, with all of this going on, I did not get the NASCAR earrings, not #14, not #19, not #55. How could I possibly decide and commit to just one of my favorite drivers?!

Recession Family Travel Tips

As we search and re-search to find a fun, unique, AFFORDABLE family-of-five vacation plan for July 4th, preferably on a nice, quiet beach somewhere within a six- to eight-hour drive from Atlanta...[June 24th: no luck yet]

Recession Family Travel Tips

from our trip to Concord/Charlotte, NC - May 2009

1) Hotels.com & the iPhone - Awesome!

We'd never been to the Charlotte area to stay overnight, so we didn't know what our options were, as far as accommodations. We were traveling last-minute (as usual), and we didn't want to risk an online reservation commitment sight-unseen and drive up to find a better option right next door, or down the street - closer to where we might want to be, if we knew where we wanted to be, ya know?

Hotels.com was the trip saver this time, since we were able to research online ahead of time and then compare prices and hotel information on the iPhone as we were driving around. When we decided upon the Wingate Inn by Wyndham, we walked in to inquire about the rate, but it turns out they couldn't offer the low rate and special advertised sale on Hotels.com. We sat down on the couch in the lobby to make the reservation on the iPhone, and the desk attendant called us over within three minutes, as soon as the reservation popped up on his computer. Great savings and convenience!

2) Gem Mining v. Amusement Park - Nature is Best!

We spent an amazing afternoon somewhere in the outback of North Carolina, an hour north of Charlotte, mining for gems at The Emerald Hollow Mine in Hiddenite, NC. It was an offbeat tourist-trap kind of operation out in the woods, but it was an afternoon spent with the kids wading down a winding creek through the forest, screening for gems and interesting rocks, and then panning for treasure from buckets of dirt ("ore") in the sluiceway.

It was absolutely gorgeous and peaceful, easy and (relatively) cheap, too - a whole bucket of souvenirs included! The entire family had a great time. When we were at the amusement park the next day, standing in long lines, getting sun burns, losing children and emptying our pockets ($$$) at every opportunity, Dear Hubby and I reflected on the wonderful day spent at the creek. In comparison...we would have rather mined again!

3) Amusement Parks after 4pm - The only way to go!

When we were there in May, the Regular General Admission price (ages 3 - 61) at CaroWinds Amusement & Water Park was almost $50 per ticket: $250 for a family of five. The Twilight Ticket - valid after 4pm - was half that, and the park was open until 10pm. We decided, given the heat during the day, our family vacation budget (limited) and our capacity as a family to endure 12 hours straight in the heat and crowds of an amusement park - not to mention the expense of a full day of meals and snacks - we went after 4pm.

It was fun and we did enjoy our time there, in spite of losing children, incredibly long lines right up until closing and a really, really gross dinner of old hamburgers and pizza...still, we did have that conversation about our gem mining experience in the cool mountains the day before.

4) Downtime Entertainment - Camp Mommy Tip #1

Always, always carry a deck of cards or a game of UNO (UNO H2O is perfect, wet or dry conditions) for waiting with kids - perfect in restaurants while you are waiting for the food to arrive and at Rest Stops and other occasions when it's too hot or inappropriate to run around like wild animals let loose on the unsuspecting public...

5) Auto Travel & Fast Food Options

I don't know why we didn't figure this out sooner, after 15 years as parents, but it is far better to pack a picnic basket and a cooler with healthy snacks and drinks for the trip, and stop at Rest Areas along the way than smorgasbord along with Fast Food and gas station Quicki Marts.

Admittedly, when the kids were younger, we'd map our route from McDonald's Playland to the next McD's Play Place along the route, but now that they are older, picnic and potty stops at the Rest Areas are the way to go, to limit calories and sugar intake, as well as the chance to get everybody out of the car to stretch, run around, geocache and gather travel brochures, discount coupons and maps in the Welcome Center. Plus, the potties tend to be a whole lot cleaner.

Camp Mommy 2009 - Tip #1 - Crazy About Cards

Camp Mommy Tip #1: Take a deck of playing cards with you, everywhere.
This will definitely be added to the Camp Mommy Summer Essentials lists (of stuff to schlep around). The kids will play cards together, anytime, anywhere, and it's a wonderful thing, almost magical, how they'll settle in and play quietly together. (Well, until the youngest starts losing, and the older ones start rubbing it in and aggravating him, just for the entertainment of it.) Current favorite games are Blackjack, Spit and "Tree Falls On Your Neighbor," which is a variation of an old classic, "Screw Your Neighbor." I'll see if I can round up the directions for play.

I came across the best little book a couple of years ago that we go to all the time for new card games and ideas. It's awesome, and small enough to carry around --
highly recommended:

The Book of Cards for Kids
By Gail MacColl

That little book gets us through slow restaurant service, long car trips, family game night, waiting rooms and a ton of other places and situations where chaos might otherwise reign...

Camp Mommy 2009: Weekly Twitter Update

Our current Twitter following on RebelHousewife.com (follow rebelupdate) is at 12 (doubled in one week!) and steadily increasing -- I am really excited about that! For the other 3,540 dedicated Rebels out there who are not on Twitter.com or who can't/don't want to follow rebelupdate on Twitter, here's the weekly update, in 140-character Twitter snippets:

Tuesday:
1) Sitting at car repair - Jeep stopped starting! We are not getting along lately. I miss my Chevy Tahoe.

2) Oh Taco Bell, I luv u so. It's been at least 3yrs since our last encounter, but u were there when I needed u 2day. Thank u, Taco Bell.

3) Following Michael Waltrip (NASCAR driver/team owner)(one of our faves): mw55. OMG he tweets a LOT - maybe an ADHD Phenom too! Luv that mw55!

Thursday:
1) Attempting to 'chunk' a v. large project: 20min timed focus sessions. Goal: 6 x 20min/day. Yesterday: 0min. Here I go on 1st 20min today...

2) 2x20min done, I rock. V. excited re: BAD MOTHER by Ayelet Waldman, sent for review. Fave author, see: http://www.rebelhousewife.com/ayelet

3) testing couponmom-if I follow from rebelupdate, will couponmom's tweets show up in Twitterbox on http://www.rebelhousewife.com? Will see...

4) I can follow and updates don't post to rebelhousewife.com (privacy issues for people I'm following) - woo hoo! Now f'ing my f'ers
Quickly followed by:
5) Okay, that did NOT come out right...I am now fOLLOWing my fOLLOWERs and I love Twitter so - almost as much as Taco Bell. Happy Thursday!

6) Trying to make a family beach vacation plan, July 3 - 8: Florida or maybe Myrtle Beach (???-never been). Easy, fun, AFFORDABLE - any ideas?

Friday:
Camp Mommy Day 19/54: TGIF!! One camper home early, 3 kids (my 2+1) long, hot afternoon in ATL. Myrtle Beach for July 4th? Thx4tweets!

Camp Mommy 2009: Oprah's Books of Summer

Worth a separate, more than 140-character Twitter mention: I am really excited about Oprah's Books of Summer!

Check out the link for Oprah's 25 Books You Can't Put Down, along with reviews, reading guides, author interviews and book group support. Here is the link to the Books of Summer Bookmark and Summer Reading Calendar: HOW MANY HAVE YOU READ?

Oprah's Summer Reading begins June 19 - June 26 with:

YES, MY DARLING DAUGHTER
by Margaret Leroy

Margaret Leroy's eerily lovely novel Yes, My Darling Daughter (Sarah Crichton/Farrar, Straus and Giroux) is one of those rare books you'll sit with till your bones ache. The mystery of why 4-year-old Sylvie longs to return to a house she has never seen, a family she cannot have known, takes this peculiar child, her anxious single mother, and a romantically scruffy psychologist onto the windswept beaches of a tiny coastal Irish village - a setting as enchantingly perilous as childhood itself.

Oprah's Summer Reading Calendar:

• June 19 - June 26: Yes, My Darling Daughter
• June 26 - July 3: Let the Great World Spin
• July 3 - July 10: Heroic Measures
• July 10 - July 17: What I Thought I Knew
• July 17 - July 24: Dreaming in Hindi
• July 24 - July 31: Essential Pleasures
• July 31 - Aug. 7: A Moveable Feast

Order now in The Rebel Housewife Stop & Shop or reserve ahead at your local library!