FAMILY VACATION ROAD TRIPS - AWAY WE GO

Each year my family takes a three week road trip for our summer vacation, most people have very mixed reactions when we tell them this, you see, our kids are 13 and 8 and we have been doing this since our oldest was 1. They ask, why we would put ourselves in a car for sometimes days and days on end. Yes, we said car, not RV. The answers are #1. I hate flying and # 2. We would miss out on some pretty weird and fantastic sights along the way. I plan to share these special locations with you. I hope if you decide to do these road trips, you will enjoy these adventures as much as we did and you'll set out to have an amazing time for yourselves.
So far we have conquered 44 states in the USA, and hundreds of cities, and we are hoping to complete our journey of all 50 states in the next couple of years.
Now for anyone wanting to do these trips, I felt obligated to help out with some tricks of the trade, and the best places to go for the kids and of course adults too. What we try to do is accommodate each person fairly and experience places that we all want to see, like National Parks and amusement parks, but sometimes we go and do things along the way that not everyone wants to see for example, an occassional art museum (for me) and a baseball game and college campus (for my husband). For me personally, I find the things I did not want to do and fought tooth and nail not to go to (but gave in) are some of the things I enjoyed the most.
I will certainly tell you that there are sights that are a MUST SEE (like Mount Rushmore, South Dakota) and what to stay clear of (Fargo, nothing to do, North Dakota).
I wanted to also help by suggesting what you might want to bring so here goes.
Things to bring... your sanity (ok, I had to throw that in there), maps, and the best toy for the adults GPS, also snacks - lots of them, clothes of course, pack seperately a beach bag with your swimsuits, lotion, and towels, if you can afford it pack the very important dvd player with loads of dvds, and nintendo with plenty of games, coloring books, and what we call little people toys (which are Mcdonald's toys), be prepared to eat at Mcdonald's alot on the road. It doesn't seem to matter where you are, you can be in the desert and seeing mirages and yet a Mcdonald's will pop up out of nowhere.
I will be updating the different states to visit and what we thought where to best places to go.
I encourage you to leave comments and ask questions. I hope you enjoy reading about our adventures as much as we going...