Holiday Road Trip $200 Visa Gift Card Contest from Sprint

This is a compensated review from BlogHer and Sprint

When my older kids were young, about 1 and 3 years old, we took a road trip to visit my father-in-law for the holidays. Even though the kids were young, we needed to make the 3 hour trip just for the day because he wasn't in the best of health.

The following story is true. It doesn't sound true, but believe you me, it is very, very true.

Things started out normally enough, we left the house and stopped a couple of miles from home to get some cash before we got on the Interstate. What happened next is kind of a blur, but somehow, as we drove away from the ATM, we ended with the car straddling a large curb in the middle of a very empty parking lot. We took the turn too wide or something.

To make matters worse, the curb was alongside a ditch which was alongside a busy street where pretty much everyone in the area was traveling back from church.

As we examined our car teetering on the curb and possibly entering the ditch, it became apparent to me that I needed to get the kids out of their seats. I worked the stroller out of the trunk and pushed the kids around the mall parking lot until the tow truck arrived and my husband simmered down.

After getting the car unstuck, we hit the road.

About an hour or so into the trip, I realized the one year old felt too warm. Way too warm and his ear hurt. We stopped at some exit in the middle of nowhere to try to find some ibuprofen or something and to get something to eat.

We went into the burger place for the older child to go to the bathroom, got some food, came back out and the car was gone. Much panic ensued until we realized we had come out a door opposite the side we entered. Yep, the car was safe and sound right where we left it.

A couple of very noisy hours later (raging ear infection, driving over a mountain) we were getting closer to my father-in-law's house. He and my brothers-in-law lived in a very rural area, and it was hard to remember exactly how to get there, so we called for directions.

My brother-in-law gave us some directions, but as he had a bit of "liquid cheer" on board those directions didn't quite work out and we actually ended up in another state. We called again, and he said he'd meet us at a restaurant and lead us back to the house. We found where the restaurant should have been, but apparently it had burned down.

Meanwhile, note we had been in the car for over four hours with a 3 year old and a screaming toddler with an ear infection after having had our car towed off a curb in an empty parking lot.

Somehow, we met up with my brother-in-law and he led us back to the house. The trip seemed to take forever winding up and down two lane roads deep into the country. When we finally arrived at the house, he told us he had taken the "scenic route" so we could "see the country".

As it was occupied by a bunch of bachelors out in the country, the house wasn't really fit for young kids. OK, I was afraid to put the crawling (and sick) kid on the floor, even. The kids' 12 year old cousin was there, so he took them outside for a little while. Somehow, the one year old (whose medicine had apparently kicked in), got into the dog's wading pool and we discovered that somewhere along the line, we had used the last clean set of clothes we had for him and were close to running out of diapers.

I don't remember exactly what we did about that, but we endured the rest of the day and, to my relief, it was finally time to go home. Night fell, we packed the car, said our goodbyes and got in the car.

The car wouldn't start.

Let me repeat that: the car Would. Not. Start.

My brother-in-law is very mechanically inclined, and I got worried when he couldn't get it going. There was no way in the world we could have spent the night there, so we tried to think of a plan.

The big city was about an hour away and we called a friend willing to host us, and my brother-in-law was going to drive us there and we could figure out the car later. But? He only had a pick up truck and we couldn't all fit into it. At this point, angels intervened or something because the car started after my brother-in-law tried "one more thing".

We couldn't get out of there fast enough.

About an hour into the drive, one of my husband's contact lenses (the ones he needs to, you know...SEE to drive) just fell out of his eye, never to be seen again. The sick kid was getting sicker, the three year old was being a three year old, so we needed to get off the road and regroup.

We decided to go to a McDonald's we knew was just up the road, since it was late on a Sunday night and very close to Christmas, we figured it would be open. When we got there? Not only was it closed, it had gone out of business and was boarded up tight. I mean, really? When was the last time you ran into an abandoned McDonald's?

We eventually regrouped and were in the home stretch of the trip when we rounded a curve on the Interstate and saw...a huge traffic jam.

Somehow, we made it home, the sick kid recovered with his hearing intact (debatable now, though since he is a teenager), and we're still married. But, now? Christmas happens at our house.

THE CONTEST

Enter to win a $200 Visa Gift Card.

To enter, leave me a comment below and tell me your funniest or most memorable holiday road trip - or you may leave a link to your post on your own blog in the comments below.

The contest will begin at Tuesday, December 8, 2009 at 9 am and will end Thursday, December 31, 2009 at 5:00 pm. Make sure that the e-mail address you leave is correct.

Rules:

* No duplicate comments.
* You may receive an additional entry by linking on twitter and leaving a link in the comments.
* You may receive an additional entry by blogging about this contest and leaving a link in the comments.
* This giveaway is open to US Residents aged 18 and older
* Winners will be selected via random draw, and will notified by e-mail.
* You have 48 hours to get back to me, otherwise a new winner will be selected.
* Please see the official rules here: Official rules


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