My wife and I went back and forth this morning trying to figure out the best way to travel up to Illinois.  We've got 3 kids and a dog and flying just isn't terribly practical for us.

Its about a 12 hour drive, which is long but not impossible on a 5 day weekend.

We've mostly settled on the idea of renting a van (saving our own van the miles and wear and tear of driving north).  We went back and forth on a luxury conversion van versus a Dodge Grand Caravan extended like the one we have.  It looks like we're opting for the latter, which will save us about $150.  We would have gone with the conversion van, but couldn't find one that was all that much bigger inside than the minivan so it just didn't seem to make sense to spend the extra money not to mention gas and getting blown around in the wind to top it all off.

The dog will be a little less comfortable, but she usually sleeps most of the way anyway.  Now we just have to finalize the call and book the thing before they run out of vans.  We are trying to confirm the existence of a DVD player in the van before we put plastic down.  :)