We will be traveling with out 11 year old daughter. Any ideas as far as route, car rentals, hotels, food. Any ideas or advice in general from those who have driven that far before??!! Thanks for your help!

Don't drive the 40 hours straight through if you don't have to (been there, done that, and it sucks.) Break it up and do some fun things along the way. Make an effort to show your daughter interesting historical sites or landmarks along the way. You'll cross the Mississippi river. You'll see a drastic change in terrain as you cross into Texas and New Mexico. You'll be a stones throw away from the Grand Canyon. You'll cross the Hoover Dam (might as well do the tour). You have a great opportunity here to show your daughter a huge chunk of the country and some really cool places. You'll have a chance to check out some great National Parks. If you don't have to rush the road trip, take as much time as you can. Breaking it up with make it more comfortable for the passengers and it can be a great educational trip at the same time.

If you can break it up in reasonable chunks than you can anticipate which cities you'll need to rent your hotels in. If you can grab them on priceline.com (name your own price) you can get some really good deals. I almost always use priceline and end up with a 2 star hotel at a no-star price.

Keep food and drink in the car to prevent unscheduled stops. You'll have enough unscheduled stops to use the bathroom, lol. In car DVD players are the best things for kids - sitting still for 8 - 12 hours a day is a lot to ask. Before the DVD players I used to get audio books and play them in the car. For the people that get into them, it keeps them awake and entertained. For the people that can't get into them, they fall asleep. Either one makes it easier on the driver.

Route: This is the way that I went: Take I-10 to New Orleans. Then took I-49 to Shreveport. I-20 to Dallas. Texas 81 (it's not expressway, but it's not bad) to Amarillo. Catch I-40 to almost all the way to Vegas. 93 will take you the rest of the way there.

We are looking for an antique car rental place something from the 30's/40's preferable. We are looking in the Hamilton area. (Ontario that is)

This is for an upcoming wedding in October.

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated

The ladies at http://boards.weddingbells.ca are very helpful and they may know of something in your area.

Ben (Ben Affleck) has two days to get from New York to Savannah, Georgia for his wedding to Bridget Cahill (Maura Tierney). Everything is running smoothly until his plane skids off the runway. Ben inadvertently saves the life of his seatmate, Sarah (Sandra Bullock), who becomes his companion for the longest two days of his life. As fate begins to repeat itself through a series of disasters involving a rental car, a train, and a bus (not to mention a hurricane), Ben has to wonder if someone’s trying to give him a message. Inevitably, he also finds himself falling in love with Sarah. Meanwhile, Bridget wonders where, exactly, Ben is, and her old boyfriend Steve (David Strickland) attempts to take advantage of the situation. Not that Bridget’s dad (Ronny Cox) really minds, since Steve is much more successful than Ben. En route, Ben and Sarah collide with Ben’s best man, Alan (Steve Zahn) and his girlfriend, the maid of honor (Meredith Scott Lynn), which further adds to the series of cosmic tests that Ben must try to answer.

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My husband and I are feeling the pinch these days. We have NO disposable income.

His only female cousin is getting married soon, about 6 hours away. I asked him not too long ago about how much we'll need to spend on the wedding, and he said it'd be around $600 for the hotel stay and the car rental (our car is not reliable to travel that far, and we have a child to worry about), and that's not even including any gift. I was a little floored because I was not expecting that. I'm annoyed that he obligated us to go with no discussion at all about this. His argument is that this is "family" and he wants to go to his cousin's wedding….and that he thought we could spend some of our tax refund on it.

That made me even more mad. We have DEBTS to pay off, and that is what our tax refund was going to go towards. I'm in school and we are about to require day care….we need to save money for that as well. We also have two more weddings to go to right after his cousin's, but at least they are local. Not to mention that I quit dancing - my only hobby and passion - because we had no money. I was fine with that because I know that you can't pull money out of your behind. But when I told him how sad I was to have to stop (it was my stress relief) and asked if there was a way to save any money for it, he would just give me a smug remark and say "Oh well! We have no money!". I understood that, but it was his attitude behind it, that he didn't really give a crap how it affected me. Regardless, I DID stop because I knew I had to…and I never nagged or complained about it since.
But he is gungho to go to this wedding?? We haven't even had our own honeymoon yet!! That is $600 we could spend on about 391561 other things right now….

Am I being unreasonable? This is not a cousin he is close to by any means….it is just being treated as extra special because she is the only female of that family.
My husband is caving into this invisible pressure from the rest of his family. This cousin is having an outrageous wedding - $60,000, having more than one wedding shower with 10 "hosts" who have to pay over $100 each…..her family can afford it. We can't!
Vera I understand you may have good intentions with your answer but you are making wide assumptions. We did not have a child "before we were financially stable" …I was laid OFF. This is his external family, and therefore he is not part of any "will" or some weird fortune that you mention.

Ok, so the DOLT lives in Arkansas and shagged his cousin. Tell him a water headed baby will be the outcome if he marry's his cousin and tries to stay married to you.

I am already shelling out $900 for hotel (4 nights), $600 for flight, $160 bridesmaid dress, $500 car rental, $100 tuxedo for best man hubby, this not even including food or entertainment while we are there…..and she just asked me to throw her a bridal luncheon and asked my husband to throw her fiance a bachelor party.

Seriously, this wedding is costing us $3500. We don't have the money to spend on it anyway, but I can't break their hearts. But it is already draining the life out of us. If I do NEED to get them something… what would be appropriate?
My husband has been best friends with her fiance since middle school (about16 years). I've known her for 5 years… but only in the last year did we start hanging out.

i think you've done MORE than enough it kinds of sounds like she is using you to some extent

My best friend is getting married in Jamaica and it’s going to cost my husband and me $2500-3000 to attend (bridesmaid dress, airfare, rental car, hotel room). Even though she was my maid of honor and she paid for a small wedding shower and a girl’s night out and her wedding gift to us was $200 (which I am grateful for all of this), my wedding did not cost her any where near what it’s going to cost my husband and me. So will it be wrong and tacky of us to get her a gift that cost less than the $200 she gave us? And not attending my best friend’s wedding is not an option. That would be worse than not giving a gift at all.

When people have destination weddings, it is generally understood that the gifts the couple will get are vastly less than they would have been had they held a traditional wedding-because the cost just to get there. We had one and only got gifts from about 1/3 of the guests, which was totally fine with us. After all, you invite someone to a wedding because they’re very important to you, right?

I don’t know whether you are crafty at all, but we got 2 handmade gifts, and they ended up being my favorite of everything we got. Often times, you can make her a wonderful gift (if you have a talent for that) for way less than you’d spend giving her cash.

I am looking to rent a PT cruiser for my wedding in August, 2007 (preferably white or silver color), in the Scarborough/Toronto area. Please let me know if you know which car rental place carries this car.

enterprise has it ,
i rented a white one in las Vegas a couple of months ago

A very dear childhood through college friend is getting married out of the country this year. We were born in the same hospital 10 hrs. apart. So he truly is my oldest friend. He & his family really want me to come, but we've lived in different states for the past 10 years and have only seen each other a few times. We have recently moved to the same city were we grew up. Anyway, I do not have anyone to travel with and would be very uncomfortable in a Spanish speaking country alone. Also, I won't know many of the people there. Then there are the expenses…plane, hotel, rental car, etc. Plus the location of the wedding is a good way from the airport. I do wish I could go to be there for him, but I just don't think I should go. Any advice or suggestions are appreciated. Thank you.

You write him a nice card congratualting him on his wedding and explaining you just can't attend. No further explanation required.

People who plan destination weddings know and should understand that most on the guest list will likely not make it.

Help….my fiance' and I are headed to Alaska for our wedding/honeymoon..we are going to spend 2 days in homer ak doing some halibut fishing…where should we visit, do, see the rest of the week? We are getting a rental car, so we dont need to stay in homer…looking for suggestions..plz help!

If you have the time and money to visit Denali by train on the historic Alaska Railroad, that's a really cool trip. http://www.alaskarailroad.com/ Ditto the Kenai Fjords tour…beautiful and really different! http://www.kenaifjords.com/ If you like to fly, you can take a flightseeing tour over the Valley of 10,000 smokes and see some bears down at Katmai http://akfinest.com/activity-description.php?act_id=80&city_id=6 .

If you go to Anchorage, stay away from stupid tourist dives like Chilkoot's. Go try the fabulous food at Marx Brother's Cafe http://www.marxcafe.com/Our_History/ or the Moose's Tooth Pizza and Microbrewery http://www.moosestooth.net/ or their sister location, the Bear's Tooth Theater Pub http://www.beartooththeatre.net/index2.html.

And remember to check out the wonderful B&Bs in Anchorage which are less expensive and way cooler than any of the hotels. http://www.alaskabba.com/ In particular, avoid the Captain Cook…very overrated and the service isn't impressive for the price.

Good Luck and enjoy your honeymoon!

My son is getting married for the third time and is angry that I will not attend the wedding. I take care of my 84 year old mother who cannot travel and there is no family around to help me. I do not have the money to hire anyone for a couple of days plus it will cost me almost a thousand dollars to get to the wedding with air, car rental, hotel, etc.
My son told me that if I do not attend this big, lavish wedding that he no longer wants me in his life and he will never speak to me again.
This is so unfair isn't it??? His fiancee also wrote me an email and was rude, disrespectful and threatening to me.
I feel bad for not being there but financially cannot afford it. I do not want to put my mother in a home for 3 days as she has dimentia and is confused already and I made a committment to her 2 years ago to take care of her.
Does anyone out there have any advice for how to tell my son I cannot come without him disowning me ? thanks, mary

Okay…if this was his first wedding, I could understand him being upset. But third?? From the way your son is acting, I wouldn't be surprised if there was a fourth. Then again, his fiance sounds like she will be perfect for him.

Bottom line, I wouldn't stress about this. You have enough going on in your life. Good for you for putting your mother's care over a one day event. You are a really good daughter and she is lucky to have you. Somehow that respect for parents appears to have skipped a generation in your family.

Explain as best you can that you need to be there to care for HIS grandmother. Tell him that you wish you could attend (whether this is true or not as this point) but it is not possible with your financial state and the state of HIS grandmother. It sounds like he is going to think and do whatever he wants either way. I wouldn't worry about it too much. He is being selfish and stupid. Hopefully he will grow out of it or come to his senses.
Good luck!