Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul

Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul is the ninth book in the series. It mainly focuses on the Heffley family going on a road trip. The book was released in the US on November 4th 2014, while released a day later in the UK and Ireland.

Main Characters

 * Greg Heffley (main character)
 * Susan Heffley
 * Manny Heffley
 * Rodrick Heffley
 * Frank Heffley
 * Beardo Family (main antagonists)

Synopsis
A family road trip is supposed to be a lot of fun... Unless of course, you're the Heffleys. The journey starts off full of promise, then quickly takes several wrong turns. Gas Station bathrooms, crazed seagulls and a runaway pig - Not Greg Heffley's idea of a good time. But even the worst road trip can turn into an adventure - and this is one the Heffleys Will never forget.

June
The book starts with Greg, Rodrick and Manny relaxing in front of the TV since their summer break just started, then Susan comes to tell them that they are going on a road trip. Greg then talks about how his parents have made surprise trips before too often, and then talks about the "Family Frolic" magazine from which Susan gets all her ideas and explains how they don't turn out well for the family. He then talks about a boat which Frank bought a few years ago, but never used for years and staying there it developed cracks and soon became a store where raccoons started to live in. They then get the stuff they needed for the trip and started cutting what they don't want, but there was still a lot of space left, even after using the boat to put stuff in it, Greg is forced to sit in the back with the stuff.

Later, Susan takes out Flat Stanley from her purse, which she hopes to take photos of in front of various places on their trip. Susan then puts in a Spanish CD so that they can learn Spanish, but they don't pay attention. Susan later abandons this plan and started playing games. During this, Greg also learns a lot of information about his parents that he never knew before. Manny later falls asleep, if they woke him up then he would have a fit so they kept quiet and even drive slow so that Rodrick can go and get food for dinner. They stop at a cheap motel, which is very dirty and there are cigarette burns and wet towels in their rooms, but there was a 24-hour cancellation so they had to stay there, since Rodrick bought snacks, they had to eat Sugar Wafers and breath mints for dinner. Later Rodrick and Greg go swimming but there is no water, after coming back and finding everybody asleep, so they go off to sleep.

Greg goes to sleep but is forced to wake up by a loud noise from outside, a bunch of kids got hold of a cleaning cart.He then got out to scold them, the youngest one started to cry and ran back into his room, then out walked his father he gave an agressive look to Greg, however Greg ran back into his room and they didn't notice which room he went to and went to a wrong one, he names the family The Beardos. After getting up, they leave for The Country Fair. While driving, they see the Beardos' van, who catch a glimpse of Greg, and they parked the car near the fair. Inside Greg, Rodrick and their father eat deep-fried butter on stick then Greg and Rodrick go for the foulest footwear contest, their entry was Rodrick's shoe which won and was sent for the national contest. There in the livestock area, Manny wins a contenst in which the person has to guess the closest to a hog's weight, which he guessed 243.1 which turned out to be the actual weight, the prize was a live baby pig and they couldn't return it back.

They had to empty a cooler to but the pig inside it, as it tried to escape.It grew a loving bond with Manny and ate their left-over food.Then later they book a room at a hotel, but it has a no pets rule.They hide the pig and then take it out in the room.The pig went crazy and opened the minibar and ate everything and also drank some of the drinks of both the rooms of Frank,Susan and Manny and that of Rodrick and Greg.They later keep it inside to visit some places. Frank gets a call from an international client and asks the family to be silent, but the pig then starts to suck on Manny's Pacifier until Greg tries to take it out, when it bites him and starts squealing, then a tractor starts honking on them, and Frank finds that his call wasn't cut and his client was still on the other side. They later give the pig to a petting-zoo which makes Manny upset and he gets tempted to run away.

Later Greg needs to get to a doctor because his finger wasn't well, they didn't find a hospital nearby and go to a veterinarian hospital, where Greg is registered as a pet "Human", then a doctor puts an anti-bacterial oinment and let him go, while Manny tries to escape again, but they buy a leash so that he doesn't run away.They later arrive at a town where they go to a resturant, where Manny once again runs away but is caught by Frank.They pull over at a hotel.

After a debate, they think of going to the Soak Central waterpark. Susan wants to go to a library, but she is outvoted 4-1. In the waterpark, they find only one seat which has broken straps and pile up their stuff there. Rodrick and Greg go to play hide-and-seek, then to make sure that the seeker doesn't go underwater he has a paper in his hand so that if he goes underwater it would get wet, but Rodrick writes "I'm not waring a bathing suit" which embarrases Greg and makes people run away from him. Later. he goes on the slide but gets in a fight with a woman and her boyfriend in a line.

They decide to go home, but they can't find their seat, Greg finds that the Beardos had taken the chair, and their stuff was piled up somewhere else but didn't tell his parents, they didn't find the key and forgot the locker number but Greg remembering it told a worker to open that locker but it turns out its empty. Greg then thinks the Beardos might be the thieves and they go to their hotel room and Frank is embrasseded by Mr. Beardo.

Manny tries to run away again, but is quickly stopped. They then encounter Spanish speaking people helping them in a purple van, where Manny gets his pig back and they go home and it takes them a while to get back to normal. Greg finds the locker number and has options to deal with consequences, pawn it off on Rodrick, or flush the key down the toilet. He has a fourth option that involves with the pig, but didn't work out it yet. It's hard for Greg to find out what do next, leaving a cliffhanger ending for this book.

Trivia

 * This is the second book in the series to not have the word "Jeff Kinney" in the middle, the first being the UK version of Cabin Fever.
 * The colour of the book is similar to the Do-It-Yourself Book, but far lighter.
 * This is the first book where Rowley Jefferson makes a minor appearance, in only one page. This is also the first book where Rowley is not seen on the title page. This is also the first book where Westmore Middle School has no appearances, except for the bathroom shown in a flashback.
 * This is one of the few books where we see branded stuff mentioned on some pages.
 * This book is the first which covers only one month, which is June, the least for the series.
 * This is the second book that Fregley makes no appearance. The first was Rodrick Rules.
 * This is the first time since the orignal book that there are missing months from the previous book, Rodrick Rules misses July and August from the previous book since it starts from September and the orignal ends at June, May is missed from Hard Luck in this book.
 * This is the second book where bad words are turned into symbols. The first was in Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Last Straw.
 * This is the second book where blood is shown in the series, the first being Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Hard Luck.

Reference to Dates
U.S. - November 4th, 2014

U.K. - November 5th, 2014