Disaster or Family Time?

This week my daughter and I are off on a road trip to visit my sister and my bestie.  The venue will include a few days in Birmingham and a few in Marietta.  This is the first of two summer vacations.  The second will be in another post as the destination is Key West…

My mom and I started the annual road trip (fiasco) when I was in my teens.  Every summer we would load up and go on the road for two to three weeks.  I have been to Mt Rushmore, Yellowstone and seen the largest ball of string.  We stayed at friends homes, relatives and once a motel that we actually put a chair against the door for safety reasons.  I think we heard banjos when driving into the town, but I can’t be sure as it was a long time ago.  For reasons best unmentioned (way before GPS and cell phones) my mother and I dubbed ourselves “Queens of the U turn”  which has stuck with us on every trip.

Once my kids were at an appropriate age for the torture, my mom and I loaded them in the car and began the annual road trips with them.  I love these trips but we resemble the National Lampoons Vacation movies more than we do the shiny brochures of the happy family traveling together. A few examples:

• When we check into a hotel – it may be in plastic publix bags…
• My daughter has lost a shoe in a Walmart parking lot
• My son has almost given a bus load of seniors a heart-attack at the Grand Canyon
  • He may have dangled a leg over the side of the canyon while screaming “hey mom look no hands”
• Witnessed a 5k run through New Orleans of guys dressed in tutu’s, heels & nothing else

Hey, they have gotten to see life outside of our tiny town.  I feel like they are educated and well rounded individuals or I’ve scared them for life. Either way, I’m sure I’ll be paying for counselors for a lot of years to come.

I hope that they will continue this amazing tradition of torturing their own children with trips across the country.  All in all there have been some spectacular moments and a lot of fun was had (between the backseat fighting).  Although I’m pretty sure I may  have threatened to leave everyone on the side of the road once, maybe twice….  Ahhhh Road Trips.