Road Trip
By Mary Beth Evans
We are a family of five….Now a very big 5. Both my boys and husband are over 6′ tall. My daughter’s 5′7” and I am the shrimp at 5′4″(on a good day). Hard to imagine, all you gals with your sweet little children, but this is what happens. In a blink I tell you..
When our kids were young we started taking road trips. We bought a GIANT RED Suburban when our 3rd child was born. As if it wasn’t big enough, we got Red..?? I am not sure why that seemed like the color for us, but man did we have some good times in that car and some great memories. There were times I would call my two best friends Carrie and Carolyn and drive by and pick up their kids to go to the beach or somewhere with my kids and me. I mean, it sat 8 people…a true party wagon. It took a beating too. Kids spilled their shakes, dropped their fries between the seats, climbed in with their sandy wet feet and bodies. Not to mention a few leaky diapers and a few barf episodes we didn’t pull over fast enough for. Definitely a “well seasoned” vehicle!
When “vacation time” came around for our family this was usually the mode of transportation. Mostly it was a yearly ski trip to Mammoth Cal., Utah or Colorado, with the drive sometimes lasting as long as 14 hours. My husband and I are the kings of “the last minute” planners. There have been times when on Christmas day we are still vacillating back and forth about if we will be leaving the next day to take the kids skiing. If we decided to go, we would usually head in the right direction (hopefully) and pick up a map 100 miles out of town. What a luxury GPS is!
We never had a video or TV in the car. I think idealistically I wanted them to see the sites and TALK TO ME, not be glued to the screen. They mostly slept, hung out, read a little, listened to their cd players or played cards. Surviving the boredom had its own certain cachet. We had our special places we liked to stop. Like the beef jerky guy in a shack on the side of the road. We were often amazed that we could eat an egg Mcmuffin for breakfast and a hamburger for lunch AND dinner. I am here to tell you …it can be done.
I really grew to love the annual trip. It may sound like a possible nightmare, but look at the positive, you have a captive audience. The stories and events they reveal are enlightening and often very funny. My kids have very happy memories of these special times.
Last year we did not make the trip and my children agreed the winter break just wasn’t the same without the road trip. So now as big as everyone is, we will again hit the road this year. Oh did I mention we sold that suburban years ago? Now have a standard old land cruiser, quite a bit smaller…everybody pretzels in. Somehow it works. Now that the two older ones are in college I know these trips in their original form are coming to a close. Before you know it I’ll be the granny in the back seat…whew..yikes….maybe I’ve got a few good trips left.
Safe travels….
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Tags: Family, Mary Beth Evans, road-trip, vacation
Wow…you make it sound like so much fun. And as I prepare for the longest roadtrip of my life (driving cross country from east to west coast), I can only hope it’ll be like that. I have to admit — I’ve been dreading the drive, even as others tell me what an adventure it’ll be. But now, reading your tale of what roadtriping can be…I think I’m changing my tune. Minus the beef jerky, that is.
sounds like you have built a very special relationship with all of your kids. When it is time to be a ‘granny’ it is so rewarding to see your kids as parents ‘borrowing’ some of your old ways and using them with their kids. Your right that things will change soon, but there is a good chance they will carry on your tradition with maybe a new twist. have a blast!!!
What memories your children will have and pass down to their own families. Traditions are important– seems like there is not enough of it these days. Thank you for sharing your journeys with us.
Safe and Happy Travels
AWWW, the family road trip. Ours was always in the summer. We had 5 also, but we were in the Celebrity station wagon (the real Griswold family truckster). We had the jump seat in the back. We soon upgraded to the “minivan”. My parents thought it would be a great idea to load us all up one summer and drive from FL to NM. But, looking back on it, I have really fond memories of it. I would not trade it for the world. My parents were the total opposite though, planning every little potty break (something I did NOT inherit from them). They actually planned out food stops on by where the Cracker Barrel’s were. Back then they were few and far between. I loved our road trips.
As young adults my parents did the same thing, they had 3 in college at the same time and they decided before we all got “to big” and really went our separate ways, they would take us all on one last family outing. So they gathered all their grown children and took us on a cruise. Were we to cool for Mom and Dad? Ya sure, but what a great trip that was. Good memories for sure.
But, we still love the family trips! Yes the car and house are now filled with the next generation and I wonder if I was that whiny on long trips as they are (we didn’t even have ipods/mini laptops/dvd players), but I know in it’s all about building memories. The little souvenirs you pick up along the way come and go, but memories will last a lifetime. I do treasure them for sure. But we do give Granny the front seat LOL.
Thanks for sharing! Hope you have a great Holiday!
Oh I so remember our road trips…..
When I was very young we had a station wagon and we used to put all of the seats down and spread out blankets and pillows. (There was no such thing as a seat belt let alone a child safety seat!) We colored, slept and played travel games. We didn’t do it oftern but it was a real adventure. Usually it was to visit family in Mass. and we lived in NJ. Back then it was a 5 1/2 to 6 hour drive. We used to go to the Jersey shore a lot to swim. Those were day trips. We used to pack our lunch – egg salad sandwiches on soft snowflake rolls – ooo it makes my mouth water thinking about them. Several of my dad’s sisters lived down there and after we ate and swam we would pile into my Aunt Ginny’s to change and sit and talk the rest of the day. It was such a small thing, but looking back on it, it was a fun, comfortable family time. I think as adults we cherish these a lot more than we did as kids….
As a mom of one child who is now 7 I often use the car CD player as a crutch. Forgetting how I traveled as a child stuck in the rear facing seat in the back of our station wagon. We played games (I Spy, Slug Bug, Cards, etc..) anything to pass the time. Your story made me realize to turn off the CD player because in a blink of any eye he’s going to be in college and we won’t have road trip memories.
Thanks for sharing and Happy Holidays.
Mary Beth,
I remember long road trip with my family when I was a kid. I didn’t like the long car rides but now as I look back, they were such wonderful memories for me with my mom, dad and 3 brothers.
I have children of my own now ages 9 and 12. I am guilty of allowing too much time with the DS, ipods and the dvd player. I think in the future I will take your advice and leave the electronics at home and have more conversations with my children before they are grown and leave me at home.
Thanks for all of your great stories. I love reading them.
Happy Holidays to you and your family.
Ilise
We have a lot in common.Love, love, love road trips!! We also take family road trips, but ours has to be in the summer since I’m a teacher(Yeah, summers!), and my husband is a letter carrier with no time off around the holidays! I have two daughters, now 16 and 12, and they have been to over 25 states and have never been on a plane. They don’t have many electronics like kids their ages so the backseat is always filled with books, markers and paper,and travel-sized games. We sometimes take a borrowed DVD player, but the girls never use it. They have a ball spending time being goofy together or making up their own silly games to pass the time. Two summers ago, we took our longest trip-Ohio to Las Vegas to visit my brother. That is a trip that my husband is planning on taking again in the near future before my oldest goes off to college. Oh, all of our trips have been in our Ford Taurus!