This will be my last blog until August or September – it depends on when our upcoming road trip ends and how much I have accumulated to write upon along the way. I have a feeling that I will have plenty to say and that most of it will be expressions of extreme gratitude for the ability to spend some real quality time with my extraordinary family while taking in some of the natural wonders around this fine country of ours. Hopefully my family will feel the same about me after this trip and not want to kill me by the end of our wanderings.
Just to clarify, a “road trip” is different from a vacation in several ways, and most of them have to do with the amount of things left to fate, chance, and luck. Vacations are more planned – they usually include airplanes, or trains, or busses – things that run on schedules and require reservations and tickets. For this reason, vacations tend to be more predictable and include things which can be counted upon – such as reaching one’s intended destination. This is not the primary goal of a road trip. The goal is the journey, which means the journey often is the destination. Reaching an intended geographic location may be included in the plan of a road trip, but it is not the high point – or even the main point – of the expedition.
One such trip which comes to mind happened in my early twenties. I set out with two companions, a few cheese sandwiches, our sleeping bags, and several homemade live bootleg cassette tapes of the Grateful Dead to see the band perform in Tempe, Arizona. But the concert, which we did in fact attend, was not the highlight of the trip. The most memorable parts of that road trip occurred somewhere deep in the desert country of Arizona – or maybe it was Utah – where we decided to camp for a few nights and heard rumors from other desert campers about what sounded like an impossibility – a mansion out there in the dunes which included a huge compound and had been built around a series of natural hot springs which were transformed into bathing pools. This was in the desert, mind you – way, way out in the middle of nowhere in the desert. It was too enticing for me and my friends to pass up. So we went in search of this oasis – this mirage – and spent what seemed like hours driving through brown, flat, nothingness out there in the badlands before we came upon a massive, gated palatial looking structure complete with green grass, palm trees, and a guard station planted squarely in front of this strange anomaly. The rumors were true. We guessed that the springs must be, too…
They were. To give all the details of how we breached the compound and took the springs – immersing ourselves in the magical, sparkling hot waters would be foolish and may even work against me in any lingering legal proceedings about the incident, but suffice it to say I have an understanding of how Ponce De Lion may have felt if he truly did discover the fountain of youth. I doubt if Ponce’s discovery was interrupted, as ours was, by a family of large, aggressive pot-bellied pigs which appeared to have been trained to run off uninvited bathers such as ourselves. The discovery of this place, and our retreat from the pigs became the high point of that road trip and the memory makes me smile to this day…
We do have several locations planned upon this trip, complete with proper reservations, which may make our road trip a “hybrid” of sorts – including some components of a proper vacation. This is mainly because as parents our children have an expectation that when we tell them we are leaving home for a number of days, we will also tell them that we are going somewhere specific. For some strange reason, they do not understand or appreciate that just being “not here” should be good enough. Perhaps this is because their summers around our house consist of playing in the yard with friends, seeking out sources of water, like pools and sprinklers to run in, the unending application of suntan lotion, and staying up later at night eating popcorn and watching “America’s Got Talent.” And it is good that they do these things. Their lives are full of simple pleasures, and my kids are very grateful and appreciative for them all. They do not quite grasp that for us, their parents, being somewhere – anywhere – that we do not have to contend with the continual tasks of food shopping, laundry, washing the dishes, cooking, mowing the lawn, vacuuming, paying the bills, and the countless other menial tasks that come with family life and home ownership, is needed to keep our sanity and appreciation for all that we have. We must get away from these things every now and then, and it doesn’t much matter where the getting away takes us – we just want to focus on something other than the perpetual dog hair on the rug or that we are out of toilet paper again!
Our plans are quite ambitious for the time we have – including such wonders as The Grand Canyon, Yellowstone National Park, and Mount Rushmore. Why not? Go big or go home with the plans and let the compass “or G.P.S. in our case” be our guide. I hope we make it to all of these places – I have faith that we will, and that our trusty old VW Camper Bus will do her best to make it happen, but as I have mentioned, the places are not the main event – the journey is. And regardless of where we end up, and what we experience along the way, I know that we will be better for it – closer in many ways and having grasped a few of the precious sands of time that continually fall through the hour glass and propel my children past their childhoods at a rate that seems far too fast for me. From the very start of our journey as parents, my wife and I have worked hard to remember and to honor this short, fleeting time we have with our kids as kids – and I find that this time seems to pass more and more quickly as they age. We know that soon we will not be considered suitable, fun companions with which to fill their free time on weekends or summer vaction. We know this because we can remember when our own parents became “uncool” – when the poor souls could not seem to muster a word or action while with us in the general public that did not cause extreme embarrassment and the desire to crawl under a rock until we could move out of our homes and away from these social embarrassments. Karma happens. We know it is coming for us. So before that time arrives, we are resigned to seize any and all opportunities to show our kids the countless places, and choices, and opportunities that they will have in this world by exploring all that we can as a family. And it wouldn’t hurt if they could recognize how really “cool” we are. No. Really. We are.
So I sign off for now as we hit the road and head for untold adventures in unchartered territories. I wish you all a wonderful summer with those you love making memories before this short window of opportunity that we call life closes. Enjoy – be happy – love big – and don’t wait to start your own road trips – the time to find your fountains of youth is going fast…
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