Vacation Memories

Some friends at church left yesterday for a three-week trip to Colorado.  Their two adult sons are going with them, so there won't be a lot of breathing room in their Buick.  They make this trek every couple of years, so it's really not a major undertaking for them - they've got it down to a science.  For someone like me who hates to travel by car, I can't even begin to imagine it.  I have a travelling rule: if the destination is more than three hours by car, I will be flying there.  Nashville is the farthest south that I will travel, and Indianapolis and Cincinnati are in the comfort zone, too.  But beyond the three-hour limit, I'll see you when my plane lands at the airport.  For example, two years ago when the Divas went to Memphis, it was non-issue that we would be flying instead of driving.  We have rules, and we live by them.

When I was a kid, travelling in the car didn't bother me too much.  We made two trips to California and two trips to Canada before I reached the age of twelve.  It was awesome seeing things that I'd only read about or seen on TV -- the Grand Canyon, the Painted Desert, Old Faithful, Mount Rushmore, the Golden Gate Bridge.  We made the trips in our cool conversion van, so it wasn't like I was stuck in the backseat of a car for days on end.  I was able to sit at the kitchenette table or on the bed while Mom and Dad drove and navigated.  The van only had two bucket seats in the front, so when I wasn't playing in the back of the van and wanted to look out and see where we were going, I had my very own director's chair that sat in the middle behind Mom and Dad. 

To pass the time while we were on the road, I would write.  Even as a kid, I was journaling - I would write about our trip.  But there was no internet back then, so I couldn't post my writings in a blog; I was content to just have a notebook filled with details and memories of our trips so I could read it after we got back home and relive the trip in my mind.