Road trips

Planned vs unplanned

Like many people of my era, I was subjected to taken on summer road trips each year by my parents. I think the 1950s to the 1970s were the golden era of the family road trip, and my childhood squeaked under the wire to be part of it.

I have some fond memories of those trips; my brother had more traumatic memories due to my horrendous motion sickness. Trapped in the back seat of a Datsun (look it up, they were small) with a green, bilious sibling is no way to travel. In spite of that, we had some good times. Mom loved Howard Johnson’s hotels; they always had a pool and, for some reason, fried clams. HoJos was pinnacle of fancy traveling in my young years and I do miss seeing those iconic orange roofs along I95.

I can smell the fried clams

Gettysburg was a frequent destination. My dad loved history, and the Civil War was one of his passions. Also, I think it was cheap. We went four times. The last time we were there, we were standing in a museum, along a table model of the battle depicting Pickett’s charge. There was a speaker somewhere in the room reciting a dramatic version of the story of General George Pickett’s failed attempt to break the Union line at Cemetery Ridge. In a room full of hot tourists who were mostly standing there soaking up air conditioning, Jim and I began to recite along with recording, imitating the dramatic voices and bullet sounds. We had been there so often that we had memorized it. My mother wanted to kill us. My father could not stop laughing. The tourists were confused. Was this part of the show? My mom hustled us out of there, swatting us with the brochure of the place.

That was the last Gettysburg trip.

We weren’t always a happy family but we could make some good memories on these trips.

Planned road trips are fun. You have things to make you comfortable on the ride, snacks, pillows, cozy clothes, and things to occupy the time. Unplanned road trips, not so much.

Remember that wedding I was telling you about? It was truly beautiful. Very Christ-centered, beautiful church, stunningly beautiful area, the venue was perfect, and the DJ was great. You could not have asked for a better celebration. The travel, however, was an epic nightmare.