This morning as I was walking to work I saw a family drive by in an SUV with five or six suitcases on top. They were obviously leaving on a road trip to somewhere and as they passed I gave them a huge smile. They were probably a bit curious as to why this girl on the street, book in one hand, big tupperware full of homemade soup in the other, was standing there grinning at them crazily. If they would have asked, I would have told them that seeing them leaving on their road trip made me nostalgic for the trips I went on with my family as a child. Though we never had anything as fancy as an "SUV" or "suitcases", every summer my family and I would find ourselves on the US Highways. It might have been only a quick trip over to Eastern Washington or a not so quick trip down to Santa Barbara, but each adventure was filled with plenty of laughter, plenty of tears, some throw-up, a bit of fighting, maybe one flat out pan-van brawl, but we all made it home safe, and I believe,were the better for it.
One specific memory that came to mind as I finished my ten minute walk to work was from a road trip my family took to attend Mormon Week at the Philmont Scout Camp in New Mexico. I was seven. On the way down we stopped at the cliff dwellings in Colorado called Mesa Verde. Boy those dwellings were magical when I was a child but what I remember most is the hilarity that ensued when our old Dodge eleven seater van, aka "The Beast", broke down within the park limits and my family of eight had to stay the night at the park ranger's house. What a nice park ranger, right? I remember my brothers finding the Star Wars trilogy in the ranger's collection of VHS tapes and getting really excited. My mother, who was (and is) such a great sport, decided we would watch the trilogy and at eleven o'clock at night we started A New Hope. Our car was fixed the next day and we were back on the road, and I believe, were the better for it.
Now I turn it over to you. Road trip stories? Mishaps? Road trips you would like to take with your family some day?
2 comments:
Yeah mouse. Love the memories. I remeber on that same trip Ryan puked all over me and Scott Wardle. Ryan reminds me all the time.
Anyway, I think a trip that comes to mind for me was one year when we had the old beat up van that had been in a wreck. Remember? Anyway, no AC on the way down to Bass Lake caravaning with the Nelsons. So the trip was going fine until we hit the central valley. It was like 100+ degrees out. So Cubby and I were sitting in the back of the van and we got in a sweat fight! WE were wiping all of out sweating on each other. It was so wild we were trying to sweat even more to gross the other person out. Gross!
My favorite family road trip was to the Oregon Coast when I was 17. We took my grandpa's motor home (which broke down a little on the way so we slept in a Walmart parking lot one night) and camped at Beverly Beach. We rode bikes and at night watched our little TV, and the place was just pleasantly misty and foresty. Now that you mention it, I threw up once on that trip and I have an aversion to Hansen's fruit nectar because of it.
Also the trip I just took this weekend to northern Idaho with my family was really fun because I got to spend lots of time with more grown-up versions of my siblings, and it turns out my youngest brother is really hilarious.
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