Minneapolis Marathon Prerace Trip

Since now nine of our marathon trips have involved our kids, I always like to show what we did as a family on each trip.  If you are a mother or father and you want to combine your marathon trips with family vacations, you can!  I hope my posts will show you how much fun the whole family can have traveling the country for marathons!

Thursday, May 31, 2012

We started our Minneapolis trip with a twelve hour day of driving in the car on Thursday, May 31 from Madison, Alabama to Madison, Wisconsin.  My almost six and almost five year old did great during the car ride.  They are becoming accustomed to long car trips, which is great since that is how we are going to travel as much as possible!  They have been on many long car trips, but neither has ever ridden on an airplane.

Friday, May 31, 2012

This day turned into one of our favorite vacation days ever!  First, we swam in our hotel's indoor pool, which happened to have a large kids' area complete with several water play structures.  I guess this is a more common thing up north since so much of the year it is freezing outside!  Then is was on to Madison's free zoo!  The Henry Vilas Zoo made a perfect stop while we waited for my sister, Laurie, to finish up at work.

After that, it was on to a four hour drive to St. Paul, Minnesota.  I have to laugh at the picture below--my sister, Laurie escaping in her phone as we begin the drive.  Laurie is not a "kid-person," so I am always amazed and impressed by her willingness to watch our kids for us to run marathons.  She, too, is a goal-setter and a dreamer, having just finished her Ph.D in Chemical Engineering over five years of work and sacrifice.  Maybe that is why she is willing to help us with our dream and goal.  We love her, and we love that, thanks to her, we have run Madison, WI (2008), Chicago (2011), and now Minneapolis (2012).

Laurie escapes from the backseat

We ate lunch on the road from a local place that served frozen custard and fried cheese curds, special treats for us.

Yummy lunch!

Then it was on to the Minnesota Children's Museum, one of the best children's museums we've been to yet!  We visit these museums frequently since we have a reciprocal pass.  The children love to visit new places and to play!

Here I am with Laurie and the kids in a karaoke room at the museum!

For dinner, we finished our drive to Minneapolis and met my cousin, Lucy, near her house at this neat pizza restaurant she recommended.  It was good and quick--my requirement since the kids were not willing to wait for a table!

Stay tuned for Saturday's activities...see below for a preview!