After mentioning our near cross-country road trip last week, did you find yourself wondering how we entertained ourselves for over forty hours of driving? Well, we filmed a lot of it with our trusty Flip video camera. And we spent this past weekend not in the car (hootie hoo!), but trimming down all that footage into a little musical montage video of our road-trip-on-steroids.
For those curious enough to take the journey with us, we can promise you’ll see:
- Some less than healthy drive-thru decisions
- A bit of behind the wheel dancing
- Grade A nerd behavior in the form of a geographic-tastic driving game
- Sherry in bed with another woman
- Obligatory Burger footage
- Absolutely zero footage of Sherry driving (because it never happened)
- Fast-food inspired decorating ideas (we didn’t say they’re good)
- Sherry with her hair down (yes, for all you why-don’t-you-lose-the-ponytail peeps)
- Visiting cultural attractions – scratch that, visiting a Pottery Barn Outlet
- A preview of our adventures with the Bowers and my cousin’s wedding, which we’ll share more of soon.
So, without further ado, please enjoy the virtual road trip below…
And while we’re on the subject, tell us where we can get a sneak peek at some of your summer travels. Got any good road trip stories to share? Photos posted somewhere to view? If anyone else has iMovied a little road trip video, we’d love to see it. Long live long drives!
amyks says
What a fun video…Sherry you look great sans ponytail!
Cori says
you two are totally adorable – well worth the 15 minutes!
Karen says
I was SO excited to see this video!! I moved from NOVA (but I am a native Richmond-er) to Austin, TX last month and was so excited to see my exact drive over again! I did it with my mom and we had a blast! So glad to see that you guys did too! Keep up the good work and thanks for the pics:)
Brooklyn says
I just love ya’ll! If ya’ll ;) stayed at the La Quinta in Bham, you were like 2 minutes from my house! Wish I had known. Anyway, hope you enjoyed our brand of southern hospitality (and Vulcans hot tushka) and I am totally embedding your trip to my blog bc you were here and bc somehow you made that roadtrip footage incredibly entertaining! Thanks for that. ~Brook
Tracy says
I love, love, love the song you have playing in the background. I went to the site you listed to find it, but I didn’t have any luck. I also tried Shazam on my iPhone to see if it would tell me the name of the song but again, no luck. Could you let me know the title of the song? It’s so happy and upbeat.
Thanks for posting your video!
YoungHouseLove says
Hey Tracy,
It’s called “I don’t live here” by Ben Drake. Hope it helps!
xo,
s
Melissa says
I finally got around to seeing the video. I loved it. I especially enjoyed the Nashville parts as it is our home and i’m glad to see people enjoying our beautiful city.
Melissa says
I love the video – super cute and you made the longest road trip ever very exciting.
P.S. Did John drive the entire time? Wow, my hubby and I may not have made it alive with him driving the entire way :)
YoungHouseLove says
Hey Melissa,
I have only driven for 6 months of my life. Crazy, eh? I moved to NYC for college right after getting my license (and there’s no need to drive there with the subway and all that). Because I stayed there for over 6 years without driving I got a little rusty. Then we moved to Virginia and I slowly started to drive here and there (I have always had a license, I just rarely actually drive). But since we only have one car and John uses it most of the time he’s still the primary driver (we love being a one car household and save tons of money since I work from home and don’t need one on a daily basis). I always say I’d be happy to drive to relieve John on road trips but we always both say soon and go back to singing/dancing/license plate spotting and before we know it we’re at our destination. Maybe next time…
xo,
s
sarah says
John and Sherry, I just love the video! In the coming seven weeks, my fiance will return from a six month deployment in Iraq, we’ll be getting married and then quickly pack up and head east to Virginia! We’re being transferred from Hill AFB in Salt Lake City, UT to Langley AFB in Hampton, VA.
We’re really excited about our cross-country drive, and your video just reinforced that feeling for us. Brian and I love your blog and I have been gleaning every bit of VA information I can from it in preparation of our move. Thank you for sharing all your ideas with us, and we look forward to sharing the great state of VA with you!
YoungHouseLove says
Good luck with your big Virginia move! We’re wishing you lots of fun along the way!
xo,
s
Stacy says
Hey there! I wanted to give you props on your video editing skills! Although the sound of being in a car for 41 hours makes me a little sick, you seemed to make it quite entertaining. I saw that you use a Flip camera and we just got one! What program do you use to edit your videos? We need something like it…simple? I hope? Please let me know!
YoungHouseLove says
Hey Stacy,
We’ve been doing all of our video editing in iMovie 09. It’s not too hard, but it does take a while (for example, editing this video took about six hours or so from start to finish with titles and fades and music and paring down all of our hours and hours of footage). When it comes to finding music, we’ve been using http://www.creativecommons.org to search for free songs. You can use their search feature to access artists on Jamendo who make their music available for use, and most just ask that you give them credit. Hope that helps!
xo,
s
Nicci says
Too, too, TOO much fun! I love road trips…and I love home videos…and I love photo montages…and I love most of all – ACTION SHOTS :)
You must send me those shots to share on the Action! Shot Revolution…the masses are craving a follow up to your honeymoon post!!
PS – beautiful wedding :)
tara lee says
You guys are so cute! Ah, I want a little Burger, I don’t the Royal Highness (a.k.a our kitteh furbabeh) (eek, or our landlord for that matter) would agree :(
Sherry your hair looks so adorable when it’s out, I request more photos with it au natural. And John, you’re rockin’ the deviators, awesome ;)
Anyways, just wanted to drop by and share some love: <3
You've totally inspired me to do my own video documentation when summer finally rolls around in the southern hemisphere (in New Zealand it's kind of a "blink and you'll miss it" between all the happy grass growing rain.. hmmph.
laura says
we actually moved from VA to houston, but just had our wedding in Jan in Baltimore. we road tripped like you guys, for our wedding, never thought to make a video though. but we stayed at that same la quinta :-) whataburger is tasty :-D and it’s always raining in birmingham lol thanks for posting it made me reminisce about our road trip from houston to va and to baltimore then back :-D so exciting being newlyweds
Joanna Borrego says
OMGoodness!!
I absolutely LOVED your video. My husband and I drove from SD to AZ for a cousin’s wedding past weekend and I thought that was rough. I’m so thankful for it only being 8 hrs instead of 40 :]
Jess (What's Normal, Anyways) says
What a great video! One of you is quite handy with all the video editing!
I just have to say I was super excited to recognize Vulcan Hill before you even panned to the “big man”! I have some friends that live in Bham and we’ve taken some great photos from that park ourselves!
Enjoy your weekend!
Katie says
Did you really unpack when you got home… like your suitcases of clothing or clean out the car? I would have crashed completely after that trip… suitcases would have waited!
GREAT video
YoungHouseLove says
Hey Katie,
Yup, we’re crazy. We like to unpack everything before rolling into bed because then when we wake up we don’t have a big pile of to-do’s waiting for us. We know it’s weird but it’s so nice to sleep in the next day (if it’s a Sunday) and it even seems to make Monday mornings easier…
xo,
s
Janet aka:TheHeaddog says
I LOVED this documentary or your road trip. You both are Super Creative AND Funny!! (not to mention cute and adorable, especially Hamburger)
Idonette says
Hi Guys
I am from South Africa and stumbled onto your blog about a week ago- I am now officially hooked/ addicted/ bonkers over your blog. Love it to bits.
This video had me very nostalgic- three years ago a friend and I road trip from Aspen, Colorado to Wilmington, North Carolina. Felt like I was reliving that trip as I watched your video as we also drove through some of those states.
Keep up inspiring people.
XXX
Jazmine says
Sherry,
Thought 1- I LOVE love love love LOVE your hair down!
Thought 2- What would you say is the most valuable advice you can give someone about traveling with a dog? My fiance and I have a 30lb french bulldog and we never go anywhere (long term) anymore because we don’t want to travel/vacation without him.
Thanks!
Jazmine
YoungHouseLove says
Our advice would just be to see what works and stick with it. For us that means bringing his crate since it’s Burger’s home away from home, so he always feels more relaxed and less stressed to travel when it’s with us. Hope it helps!
xo,
s
Randa says
I agree with the others who said they love Sherry’s hair down! So pretty. Also looked very nice in the French braid. :)
Very fun video, guys!
Heather says
Ok, so I know I’m about a year late on this, but this video totally made my day! I live in Fork Union, work in Charlottesville, grew up in Knoxville, went to college in Nashville and married a man from Dallas.
KG says
I’ve lived in Arkansas my whole life and the comment on never been to AR made me laugh b/c I know not many people “vacation” there. Hope the drive wasn’t too horrible for lack of many interstates! And on my last trip to TX I was also surprised there was not some grand sign in the middle of Texarkana letting me know I crossed out of my home territory. Glad you had a great trip, I love your blog!
Heather says
So I am a little late on this post, but I was perusing your site and found this and couldn’t resist watching since you did go through my city! My hubby and I live in Nashvegas so it was awesome to see you at some of our fave spots and see that you stayed at Hotel Preston since it is like 5 minutes from our house! I also cracked up when you were trying to remember Rippy’s! LOL! I love your blog and read every day at least once a day! My husband has gotten used to me saying, “but they do it like this on Young House Love”! Keep up the good work! You are inspiring to say the least!
Margo says
I love the mirror white! It is so distinctive just in its shape–no need for color to make it stand out!
Jennifer says
Memories!
My husband and I moved from South FL to KY in the winter in 2009, and from that we switched schools and we just took a moving road trip from KY to TX in August 2010! So it was nice to see the same roads you were on for memories.
Arkansas though, eh. It was okay.
It was a long trip :) We went through Nashville so it was pretty much the same drive the rest of the way (in a wonderful full moving truck :P )
We are in Waco now, so that’s about 2 hrs to Dallas (which we do take frequent trips, gotta love good gas mileage!)
So, where is that beautiful church of your cousins?!! I would like to see it next time we are there.
I didn’t realize you were in Richmond (if your new house is too that is). My Uncle & Aunt-in-law are in Mechanicsville, VA. right off of I-95 (I do miss that highway :) So you are really close to DC too then. Fun area!
Depending on hubby’s schooling, we may stay here for his PH.D. at Baylor or move to Duke in N.Carolina. It would be nice to be a East coaster again, but I don’t know if I want to move once more in 1 1/2 years. We will see!
By the ways, I look forward to your posts, it keeps me focused on what I want in life and what we have to do to get there!
Maggie says
Love the video!!!
Burger is so calm riding in the car. Our chihuahua gets so nervous. Do you have any tips?
YoungHouseLove says
We just exposed him to the car a lot from when he was little (trying to get him used to it). We’d suggest giving your pup some treats or other positive reinforcement when he/she is relaxed and calm in the car. Or maybe going on long trips (they have to settle down at some point, right?). Maybe ask your vet for advice too?
xo,
s
Meaghan says
Okay, so I thought I’d be the only one to actually watch that entire video and then comment on a post from 2009- but I guess I was wrong!! HA!
I’m so envious of the fact that you made all that film into a great little edited movie that you (and your kids) can enjoy later. I have so much video of my babies and it’s totally overwhelming to think of all that editing to get a wonderful video to watch later. But I think about it all the time and SO want to do it!! Ugh. Any suggestions to keeping it organized, planning, etc??
Love, love, love the blog. :)
PS- Sherry, please share how you got John to do all that driving by himself!! Awesome!
YoungHouseLove says
We say go for it! Projects always seem more daunting before you start, and too much planning just takes time away from actually doing it. Just pick a goal (like “I’ll spend four hours over the weekend on it” even if it’s broken up across a few kiddo naptimes) and jump in. You’ll probably have a lot of fun once you open the ol’ can of worms. Good luck!
xo,
s
Candace says
Welcome back home! Loved watching your road trip. Super cute. Hope you share more trips in the future on your blog.
brandi says
I love you guys! This video was so adorable! I really enjoyed it! We drive from Ga to N.J(I’m a Jersey gal too Sherry) every couple of years, this would be a neat way to document our future trips! I love,love,love the outlet shops in S.C too! Thank you so much for having such an awesome site! You guys are awesome!!!!!!!
Emily says
Hey, this is so cute! Did you ever end up using the charging station? I don’t remember seeing it…
YoungHouseLove says
Yes we love that thing! We had it in our laundry nook, so we’d come home and charge our phones right by the door (which was the nice thing about grabbing them on the way out). At the new house it’s set up on the desk in our living room (the one also covered with junk and frames to hang) so we’ll have to get a bit more organized so it’s visible soon!
xo,
s
Melanie says
Love this video guys! Ack, 40 hours in the car is a LONG time! Granted this comment is a little late, but still had to comment ;)
http://ianandmelanietravel.blogspot.com/2009/07/day-1-vancouver-bc-to-seaside-or.html is Day 1 of a road trip blog my husband and I (fiance at the time) made on a road trip from Vancouver BC to Santa Barbara, CA if you’re really interested. That is really an amazingly beautiful drive, especially down the coast of California.
Then last summer we moved from Vancouver to Niagara Falls, and road-tripped it here.. However, now that I look back at those blog posts, I was pretty miserable the whole time (car sick, anxious, sad to be leaving my family, etc.), and we did the trip in only 4 days. But I only posted pictures from the first day, though I did do a little write up for each day… haha Anyways, that’s on the blog linked to my name, but like I said, I didn’t post many pictures. Too bad…
Anyways, that looks like a great trip guys, and now that I’m living in Ontario, I’m hoping to do some road trips south of here, hopefully all the way down to Florida at some point.. Looking forward to some new road trips :) Any suggestions of places to see? Anything not to be missed??
YoungHouseLove says
We’ve pretty much driven up and down the east coats and love it all! We just google around for must-see stuff wherever we’re going and try to stop in on stuff that sounds interesting to us. Good luck and happy trails!
xo,
s
Kristen says
So you mentioned wanting a few ideas for a road trip- Have you ever been to Sandston? Small town near Richmond International Airport. There is a couple stores worth seeing if you are looking for some nicely priced, previously loved furniture. One of the stores has some really awesome stuff and with your creativity will be priceless. Across the street is an old pharmacy that is now a gift shop and grill. With the world’s most awesome limeades and grilled cheese sandwiches- There is also a used baby clothing store down the street with some great stuff too. Also dont forget to hit up the N and W salvage – no words can express the shopping experience. None of these place are super fancy but if you are willing to give it a try I think you may find a treasure. Good luck and can’t wait to hear about what you find!
YoungHouseLove says
Never been but it sounds fun! Thanks for the suggestion!
xo,
s
Erica says
Another great video from you guys!! Sherry, you look so pretty with your hair down! John & Burger look cute too!
My husband is a professional team driver and drives all over the country, so we don’t get to road trip together that often. When we do, my husband is fussing about the traffic! LOL
I really want a Chihuahua too!
-Erica :-)
Meagan says
I know this is way after the fact, but I love that y’all stopped in Birmingham! You can actually see Vulcan from my apartment! Next time y’all come through you should eat at Urban Cookhouse…its this awesome little restaurant that uses locally grown fruits and veggies and other organic stuff…totally “green.”
YoungHouseLove says
Mmm, that sounds awesome! Thanks for the suggestion!
xo,
s
Jen Jeffries says
Hi Sherry! I was just wondering how you made that video and if it was hard to do. I like that you included video clips as well as pictures/music. I’ve been wanting to make a video like that, but I have no idea how to. Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks! :)
YoungHouseLove says
We just used iMovie (which came free with our Mac) to make the video. It took a little while to figure it out but once you get the hang of it it’s not so bad. Hope it helps!
xo,
s
Brandan WH says
Loved this! You two are just entirely too cute! I’m not sure I would have been as energetic on such a long road trip. I’m one of those people that falls asleep almost immediately if I’m not driving! But, you’ve inspired me. Got a trip planned to Michigan, so maybe I’ll drive it instead of flying from Virginia…
GeNae Welch says
So glad y’all went to Dallas! My favorite place! And I loved the idea! Your website is simply amazing…. It has made me re-think my entire future (Not even kidding… I love your wedding idea, I love your simply (And cheap! Yay!) DIY ideas) Made me realize I can have cute stuff without it being tacky or expensive! Thanks so much!
Meredith says
I’m just now seeing that you passed through lovely Birmingham and visited Vulcan, “God of the Forge”…if you make it through again, I’ve got some recommendations for you (shopping/food/etc.)
YoungHouseLove says
Thanks! We’d love to make it out there again someday!
xo,
s
Calypso says
This is hilarious.. inspired me to try and take some footage of our many road trips from TX to MS.
Calypso says
My husband wants to know: In Mississippi, were you in Natchez??
YoungHouseLove says
Hmmm, sadly we don’t remember if we drove through there. We didn’t really stop in Mississippi except to take a picture right at the rest step at the border. Sorry!
-John
Morgan says
Just watched this video for the first time and was excited to see that you guys went through Birmingham! I went to school at UAB which is just down the hill from the Vulcan! I actually had a perfect view of the statue out my dorm room window and could see it lit up every night while I studied. :) I went there twice during college and it always scared me to be up so high, haha.
YoungHouseLove says
I love that! Such a cool area!
xo,
s
Stacey says
Hey guys! What a cute roadtrip video! Figured I’d throw some knowledge on ya! When you were passing through Gaffney, South Carolina you did in fact see a peach shaped water tower. Since SC actually produces more peaches than Georgia! Crazy, huh? I guess they just get more publicity. Happy 5 years!!
YoungHouseLove says
Haha, so funny!
xo
s
iTOWNSEE says
What a great road trip video – loved it! Ahh.. made me miss road tripping WITHOUT my now toddler on the back seat :-)