(Week 40)
Family vacations are fond memories at least from my perspective as the child. Summer was for road trips. My favorite because I either enjoyed the new scenery or slept across the back seat of our Impala station wagon in the days before parents were conscious of the safety implications of that.
As an only child, there were no siblings with which to fight. The car was quiet except whatever “talk radio” show my parents found broadcasting in that part of the country. At some point, my parents bought me headphones for my little “boom box” radio and cassette tape combo, so the road trip soundtrack was more equitable.
Summer vacations were usually long weekends in a lot of the same places: Montauk, New York and Williamsburg, Virginia especially, then New England or other northeast destinations. My parents seemed to favor destinations in the 13 original colonies. Maybe that was because of their interest in the American Revolution and the founding of the United States. As an adult I began to branch out, although I still have 21 States to visit.
Family vacations from my perspective as a parent always seemed more stressful. There was the family road trip to Dollywood in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, when my daughter was one. On the way there we found ourselves in a Burger King for lunch with a motorcycle gang. Navigating the parking lot on the way out was reminiscent of the biker bar scene in Pee-wee’s Big Adventure.
While Dollywood itself was fun (with a small exception of the tram ride from the parking lot which one-year-old daughter wanted no part of), traveling with such a small child required a lot of organization, extra baggage, and let’s be honest, pressure on mom to keep it all together. Being over my head as a young mother, on the way home, I left all her clothes in a drawer in a hotel in North Carolina. Thank goodness for southern hospitality, and gracious hotel staff who retrieved the items and FedExed them home.
Our next trip – it took me two years to warm to the idea of doing anything like that again – was when she was three and newly potty-trained. That was a road trip to Folly Beach, South Carolina (just south of Charleston). On that trip, we got lost one afternoon exploring the area, spent a little too much time on the road, missed a trip to the restroom, and found ourselves in the girls’ department of Target buying a new outfit. I was not feeling like great mother that day. But things got worse.
Back at the hotel, passing through a gate that led from the pool to the beach, she somehow got her finger painfully stuck in the locking mechanism. After many tears, and what seemed like hours (but was probably 20 minutes), hotel staff was able to dismantle the lock and release her finger. All good, right?
The next morning the car battery was dead, and the day’s activities were delayed as we waited for AAA. The drive home – which we were hell-bent on doing in one day – took over 19 hours because of a fatal tractor trailer crash on I-95. And the bad mother that I was, I made her wear pull-ups so there wouldn’t be any more accidents.
At this point we were only beginning to realize “family vacations” perhaps weren’t our thing. There’s more.
Did you really think this wasn’t going to include a fundraiser? It’s me. Of course it is! Over the course of these 60 weeks, I am hoping to raise $6000 for the children of Mercy Home for Boys & Girls (that’s just $100 a week!). To learn more about Mercy Home and my why, please visit my fundraising page. Thank you.
