Traveling with kids

Curiously How many of you moms and/or dads travel with your children?

I love to travel being that we live so far from our family I love to travel. I tried to fly once with Alexander when he was about 4 months old to NY and it was horrible. So I drive wherever I go. My normal trip is 17 hours whether to Chicago or to NY and yes I normally do it in one day! My kids are great on the road.

Handling Stops with three kids and one mom.
 I did discover that if it is just them and I we don't stop at Gas Stations for restroom breaks. They want stuff and want to touch stuff and wowzer more stress then needed. Usually we fill up at a gas station, and stop at a truck stop to get out. Also if we are going to eat something we usually go to a McDonalds with a play place. They play the whole time and then eat in the car. Then they have a toy in their happy meal!!! :) So beneficial for us all. We do only stop once normally for food though. I pack snacks and water bottles for them. Then it saves time for stopping. We normally leave at like 3am and drive. Normally we make 2-3 stops for bathroom, 4 stops for gas, and 1 stop for food and stretching. Alex has been the only one that has to use the bathroom. So when we stop I do have to change diapers on the other two but I just watch Alex potty break times in a normal day and keep milk and apple juice away for a couple days!

Entertainment on the road
If we leave at 3 am normally they sleep till like 7 or 8. gets a pretty good start for us. Then it is time to entertain. I used to use a TV with DVD's. It seemed like this kept them up and it was a lot of can you change the movies and whining. So I have discovered to take a lot of little toys and some books. This entertains them. I also run them ragged the day before we leave. My kids sleep over half the trip in the car and the other times are pretty much reading, and playing with the toys. We take one blanket each and a stuffed animal. It works great. We have a lot of fun doing this. I also look for cool things that are on the back of trucks. Half the time I don't know what I am pointing out but it is exciting for them to see something new. We also sing together. I will turn off or down my radio and we sing songs together. They don't do a lot of are we there yet questions but I do get which city is this. :) When I don't say Chicago, or we are just outside NY (Not many cities close to my family) they are not very happy but they know we are closer then when we started.

Time on the road can get crazy
My kids do great but they are not perfect I expect at least one melt down from each of them on the way. The boys will argue over toys and sometimes it makes me want to pull my hair out while driving. But we get there and it is always worth it. The time we have with family and the time we have with ourselves doing something new or seeing something different. Makes it worth ever mile!

Questions for you
Do you have a routine for driving? Do you have any airport advice so I can fly more? What do you recommend for road entertainment? I would love to have feed back from other moms/dads!