What happens when two overworked parents in their mid-30s decide to drive their two young children in a Prius all the way from Spring Hill, TN to Destin, FL and back?

Awesomeness, that’s what.

Granted, we experienced our obstacles; that’s for sure, which you can read about here.

But my wife and I obviously knew there would be challenges involved in taking a 1 year-old and a 6 year-old on a 7 hour road trip. It didn’t matter to us. We were ready for a vacation, so we made it happen.

When the folks at Toyota heard about my family’s plan to take such an ambitious road trip, they were quick to sponsor us by supplying us with a 2017 Toyota Prius Three for the week.

I was so happy about this, because I knew the Prius is supposed to average 52 miles a gallon, since it is a hybrid.

Fortunately, that wasn’t true. Instead, we averaged 55.5 miles a gallon. And for the entire round trip, which even included a day trip to Pensacola as well, it only took us two tanks of gas. (That’s less than $50 for the entire round trip!)

I decided to name our road trip “Ride the Lightning”, which references the (coincidentally same-colored) 1984 album by Metallica, and ties it into the fact the Prius has an electric engine.

So quite literally, our family rode the lightning to Florida and back.

Cargo space wasn’t an issue for us either. Even with our daughter’s travel crib, plus all our clothes and food, we still had a little bit of room to spare.

This trip made our daughter’s first visit to the beach- and she absolutely loved it!

It also made for the first time that my wife, son, and I experienced the glory of simply riding in an inflatable donut on the waves.

Sure, it wasn’t practical for my wife and I to take our young kids on such a long road trip, but we made the most of it.

And now that our vacation has ended, it’s simply a question of how soon we can do this again!

I’ve got so many more things to say about our trip, so be on the lookout for more stories about our family’s “Ride the Lightning Tour” to Destin in a 2017 Toyota Prius Three…