Back in Australia

As I write this we have been back at home for a few days now.

Wed July 8th we didn’t get home till about 1030am and to have the least effect of jet lag I kept myself busy and didn’t nap. The dogs were happy to see us and tequila the blue tongue lizard was still alive!!

Inara went to a friend’s house, Brandon played fortnight with a friend all day online, and I mowed the lawn, cleaned the house ,did laundry and then finally crashed. Josh didn’t sleep much on the plane so he took a nap, and then went food shopping and made dinner.

We are back into the swing of life with Brandon back at footy practice on Thurs night and Inara had gymnastics on Friday. Today, Sat we have soccer games for both kids and footy game tomorrow. I have been back at the gym twice now and the house is still being deep cleaned and reorganised.

Our trip was 80 days, and we drove approx 8,500 miles or 13,669 km through 25 states.

We spent approx $35,000 aud with $2085 of that being petrol/ gas, including our shopping of clothes, and shoes and all the Christmas ornaments we collected.
Cheapest petrol price was ???
Highest was in the Tennessee Mountains on way back to Asheville at $4.65 usd??!
Without borrowing the jeep we would not have been able to afford the trip.

We also had 3 different house sitters at our house looking after the pets, plants and house in general which were there as a barter and no $ exchange hands. This was an awesome help to be able to travel for so long.

We stayed 7 nights in Universal Orlando, our longest stint in one spot. It was an average of 3 days in a spot.
The accomodation varied;
-Over a barn at a cow farm, 2 single beds on two lofts and King bed
-A small shelter room at a goat farm with one bed and a floor mat
-A covered wagon at a KOA with queen and bunks
-A colourful motel in pan handle of Florida , 2 double beds
-A RV in a RV community
-Universal Hotel room with two rooms
-A tree house with a loft and twin beds in the kitchen
-A Airbnb attached to a house with bunks
-A beach house via Stayz and shared rooms with cousins
-Airbnb deluxe house looking over the Smokey Mts with a hot tub, and kids has built in bunks.
-KOA cabin with a pull out couch, and a single bunk over the double bed
-Motel and hotels in little stops like Eldon, Delaware and Dallas all with two double beds booked via qantas or booking.com
-Numerous houses of friends and family which had different sleeping arrangements, using couches, sharing beds and normally bed hoping to where ever it will be the easiest for the kids to sleep.

Things we did to keep costs down:
-Didn’t always order a meal each as portions are big
-Cooked in the accomodation as much as possible
-Had subway meal deals, Monday meatball sub being the most popular with the kids
-Went to Costco to get on the go meals (pizza,smoothies) and cheap liquor
-Joined Love’s petrol station rewards program to get 10 cents off of petrol as well as points to buy snacks

We did as many activities as we could, some just for thrills and fun, others like the zoo and aquarium, and museums for learning and experience.

Top three:
Elisa
Swimming with the manatees
Seeing and spending time with friends and family
Seeing St Louis and all it had to offer, it was surprise

Inara
All theme parks and water parks
The boat day out in Ohio
Seeing family , meeting new friendsRead more