On the Road: Priceline plane tickets

Since David and I couldn't compromise on when we would leave Oklahoma and start heading back to Virginia, I put him on a plane back home, and stayed with the two girls.

Being cheap, I first priced the tickets on Kayak, they were about $1200 (and this is round trip, even- never buy one way tickets, they are always MUCH more expensive). Then I went to priceline and named my own price. Every time I got rejected, I changed the return flight date since we were only needing the first half of the ticket anyway. I eventually got a ticket for $277, total.

I love priceline, it is always exciting bidding on travel arrangements. I have done lots of priceline travel, but the safest bet for that site is the plane tickets only. Hotel rooms bought on priceline don't always live up to expectations. For instance, once when my little family of three was living with the circus in St. Louis, my parents decided to come out to visit. We were living in the Haunted Bus, which is a converted school bus, essentially an RV without the bathroom. There was no room for the parents. So they booked their trip online, flight and hotel room. They arrived and discovered that their hotel room was walking distance from the arch, right near the river. It was a beautiful building with beautiful views... if you paid full price. They checked in and got their room assignment, headed to the elevators. It appeared that their room was DOWN one floor. It was underground. They went down and when the elevator opened, they entered a hallway/workzone. The underground level was under construction, and the quality of their room was proof of the needed renovation. My dad pulled the sink off the wall just brushing his teeth! Luckily my parents are good-natured. They had a great time visiting, and spent as little time in their hotel room as possible. After all, they had a circus to visit!



Here I am in June 2004, when me, my husband, and our 8 month old daughter, Emilie, were living in the "Haunted Bus" on the circus lot in St. Louis. Our neighbors were the Flying Pages, a trapeze family. this is how my mom, the real estate agent, described our living arrangements, "Here is Liz and Dave's circus lodging AKA Haunted bus. The couch is at the front flanked with an end table on one side (doubling as a refrigerator) and garbage can on the other. Across from the couch is the kitchen. It is equiped with a microwave, hot plate, utility sized sink, counter, cupboards and TV. Out of view and behind me, when taking the photo, is the bedroom closed off from the living area by curtains. It has a double bed, 2 dressers and the baby crib. The covered patio is off the front and sports a picnic table and grill. Pretty nice set up."

On the Road: living in a hotel

Our happy little family of four has been sharing a hotel room for the past eleven days. It hasn't been so bad, but I can understand those people who insist on an adjoining room for the kids. It makes sense.

For us, though, we are just too cheap. So at bedtime, my husband and I put the girls down in their sleeping bags on the floor. They get a book or two to look at, while we hog the king-sized bed with one or more computers. Either we are both working/surfing or we share a computer and watch a DVD together with headphones. Usually the girls will fall asleep while we are quiet and out of eyesight. But sometimes it takes a little convincing.

Last night, while hubby and I were settling down to watch Semi-Pro, the girls were quiet, at least until the soundtrack to the movie turned quiet. Then we noticed some suspicious giggling, so I switched on the bedside lamp to discover Madeleine, clad in nothing but her pullup, spread sideways over Emilie's form draped in her sleeping bag. Maddie was rocking back and forth, using nothing but her fingertips and toes for grip on the floor, her stomach clenched, supporting her full weight on Emilie's body. Back and forth back and forth... she looked like she was flying. She didn't appear to be giggling, however. In fact, she wasn't smiling at all, her face was contorted with her effort to arch her back, tighten her abs, and grip/push with her toes and fingers. The giggling was instead coming from the lump of pink sleeping bag being squashed and rocked. Apparently that was more fun.

So we threatened them and eventually they fell asleep, as they do every night. Once they are asleep, we can usually flip the lights back on and operate almost normally in the room with them. They are used to sleeping through these things.

In the past when traveling with the kids, I have brought a baby monitor. Good quality baby monitors can work pretty far and can especially help with bedtime. You can put the kids to bed, and slip out into the hallway, another room, or sometimes the lobby with the monitor to wait it out. Once all is quiet, you can sneak back in and turn the TV back on!

On the Road: 21 hours to OK

We left Thursday morning"ish", drove to Roanoke where we picked up the rental van. (One thing I didn't consider on my Cheap-Skate Car Rental post was this: paying for parking at the airport, since this is where I am renting the cheap van from... that will add up to about $70.) From Roanoke, we made it to Nashville before we cashed in some Holiday Inn points for a free hotel room. It was about an eleven hour drive the first day. Friday we drove ten hours, stopped in Seminole, OK to catch the local fireworks, and then continued on our way. We arrived at destination Ada, OK at 10:30pm. All-in-all, it was about 21 hours in the car.

The girls did great. The week before we left I splurged $20 at the Dollar Tree and bought new toys and activities (mostly Princess themed...). I also bought two plastic boxes, one for each girl. So we were ready. The first hour they decorated their boxes with stickers. We declared them their "road trip boxes," and each time they got something to play with or do, they would put into their road trip box. (Madeleine even pilfered away half a bag of chips in her box for later.) Each hour or so they would get a new surprise, the next hour a snack, then a surprise, then a snack, then a surprise... You get the picture. By the end of the road trip, they each had a pretty full road trip box, and we only stopped at a restaurant for one meal the whole 1200 miles.

Cheap-skate car rental

We are driving from Virginia to Oklahoma on Thursday, and I don't trust our van to make it. Nor do I trust myself to make it, since the van doesn't have any air conditioning. So, renting a van to do a 2400 mile road trip??? Yes, indeed.

Usually I don't worry too much about car rental costs because I only rent them for business trips. Well, this two-week trip is part business part pleasure (if you count 20 hours in the car with two kids and the husband "pleasure"), so I'm in cheap skate mode. And here's how I worked the cheap zone, I'm quite proud of myself on this one.


14 day mini-van rental from Richmond, $1050 (2000 free miles).

This would not suffice, so I google-mapped my route and started getting rental quotes from nearby cities on the way west. (Good comparison quotes at Kayak.com) I found the cheapest rates were in Roanoke, VA. So I logged into my Budget FastBreak account. (ALWAYS join the frequent renter program when you rent a car. It can save lots of time at the airport pickup counter because they usually have a special line for you, plus you can link your reward points to the airline of your choice. Even if you never plan to rent there again- join.) So, I got a further discount from Budget:

14 day rental mini-van from Roanoke with Budget account, $870 (2000 free miles).

Then, I googled the term "Budget car rental discount codes," and I got tons of hits. Most were the typical waste of time, but I found a gem, and I will share it here (I KNOW this will double my readership of five...) www.rentalcodes.com. I found the code I needed, went back to Budget and entered it.

14 day rental from Roanoke with Wal-Mart discount code, $670, with unlimited miles.

Voila. An hour spent and 400 dollars saved.