My Version of the Road Trip

Now that you heard from my wife who tends to be more personal and factual about our adventures, here are my thoughts after the trip up to Washington.
***
Packing up the car and driving across portions of the Country as a family is a good old American tradition. It only makes sense that the country that perfected the mass production of the automobile and publicly funded interstate freeways should embrace a tradition such as the “Road Trip”. Because of this fact, I thought the best way for my family to spend our time before we head off to another country is to embrace our American heritage and hit the road. So we completed the task of packing our home into storage and then loaded our essentials for a drive up the west coast of our country to our final stop in Washington State before heading off to Israel for the year.

Our trip would take us to the Northern California Coast to the famous Coastal Redwood forest. And what says, “Road Trip” more than driving through one of America’s largest states, sleeping in roadside hotels, and eating “Moons Over MyHammy” for lunch at Dennys? Once in the Redwood forest you can actually spend the day in awe of God’s creation and be convinced of the value of conservation and responsibility towards our natural resources and then drive through a 1000 year old tree that someone decided to decimate by carving it out just enough to fit a family vehicle right through the center. To complete the experience, you have one person jump out of the car and take pictures of your vehicle actually going through a tree. Only the families that swallow their pride enough to take part in these most cliché’ tourist experiences can fully enjoy the real American Road Trips.
While driving up the coast in hopes of getting in touch with nature and finding some “World’s Largest Lump-of-Clay” type photo ops, I realized that a few universal rules apply when enjoying a family vacations on the road.

Rule Number One: No matter how much fun is being had, the kids must take periodic breaks to either complain about the length of the journey or to fight with one another. It is a very important part of the trip to make sure that the parents go through times during the trip where they think it would be better to be back at work. Without these moments of torture, parents would quit their jobs, sell their homes, and devote their lives to touring the world with the family. Productivity in our nation would drop and the population of hippies would grow out of control so rule number one is essential.

Rule Number Two: Parents must make empty threats to everyone in the car. Common phrases are, “If one more person complains we will sit in the hotel room and do nothing all day”. Everyone except perhaps the parent making this threat knows that sitting in the hotel room and disrupting the schedule is not an option so no level of poor behavior will ever put these threats into effect. Other common phrases are, "I will turn this car around”, “We will never go on vacation again”, “This is the last time we are stopping to go pee”, or “We will just leave you on the side of the road and continue without you”. This final threat is the most likely one of all to be fulfilled so parents must use caution when vocalizing it.

Rule Number Three: The driver shall be the only one truly interested in seeing all the great wonders of God’s creation. Only a driver (and usually only driver who has entered the ranks of fatherhood) can pretend there is beauty and joy found in driving 8 hours through hot, dry, and smelly places like central California. The problem is that only the driver is truly required to stay awake and pay attention to the surroundings so all other passengers can find ways to pass the time until they arrive at things truly worth enjoying. Basically, everyone else just wants to get to the next stop, hop out of the car and pose for a family picture in front of “America’s largest ball of twine”, and get back to sleep in the car.
I remember when I was young our family would drive across places like South Dakota and my dad would say things like, “You boys better wake up and look out the window. You are missing all of the scenery”. Of course he knew that South Dakota doesn’t actually have any scenery and he also knew that life was easier if we all stayed asleep, but violating rule number three is unacceptable so the game goes on.


Rule Number Four: The schedule is similar to the budget; it looks good on paper but is more accurate when made after the trip is complete. I don’t have time to get into this so allow me to simply give some quick observations. Scenic drives come with RV’s and Logging Trucks. Gas stations are never available when the fuel light goes on. “Points of Interest” are never just off the road. Kids and wives forget things at restaurants and don’t remember for at least 15 miles down the road. Tires never pop unless it is raining.

By the way, our trip up the coast was perfect. I thoroughly enjoyed seeing all of God’s creation while my wife and boys slept. We got our picture driving through a tree. We almost ran out of gas on a scenic road but luckily found one pump at “Harry’s Gas, Beer, and Fine Collectibles” station. I threatened to turn the car around twice before coming to grips with the fact that turning around would make our trip even longer. We ate blackberries on the side of the road. We hiked through the woods at three different stops. We searched for agates at Agate Beach. We ate more fast-food than we have in the past year. We made it to our final destination and were actually glad we took the trip and look forward to the next one.