Ode to Hymn #694* (Free Hot Lunch)

There are two kinds of people in the world: those who take vacations and those who travel.

A vacation is someplace you go to relax, rest, rejuvenate. It often involves travel —sometimes a little, sometimes a lot — but usually the travel is direct, getting you from home to your point of destination. Once you arrive, there may be the occasional side trip or adventure, but usually you have a base of operations. Cottages, second homes, beach houses, resorts, and destination vacations, like Disney World, all fall under the realm of vacation. Visiting the grandparents in Florida is a vacation, even if it takes two days of driving each way. You could arguably include cruises in this list, as well.

Traveling is a whole different ball game. The point of traveling isn't where you're going, it's what happens along the way. Writer Miriam Beard once said: "Certainly, travel is more than seeing the sights; it is a change that goes on, deep and permanent, in the ideas of living."

I hope that's true, otherwise the nearly three weeks that my family of six just spent crammed into a minivan were for naught. I like a nice vacation every once in a while, sitting on a beach or going to an island resort. I like to travel, too, but to travel successfully requires a lot of advance planning — something I don't enjoy. Fortunately, I have a husband who thinks vacations are a bore, who loves to travel, and who dives into all the research and prep work like a man on mission.

Traveling with three teens and a 'tween may not be everyone's idea of a good time, but this was our last hurrah before we send the girl off to college. From now on, chances are that when we gather it will be more of a vacation than a journey. One of the delicious things about this particular trip was that, with the exception of our furtherest point (a wedding in Seattle), every place we went was virgin territory for all of us.

A family is constantly in transition, but the changes are usually subtle. Suddenly, your boy is wearing flood pants and you realize he has grown three inches. Or your girl makes dinner for you and you realize how independent she is. Some of the changes are accompanied by physical symbols — that shiny new set of braces or that shiny new drivers license. Others are unheralded, almost unnoticed, like when toddler temper tantrums subside, or two consecutive years of whining taper off into the occasional eye roll. These are all signposts on the journey of a family.

But what do you do when you get to the end of the road; when one of your co-travelers is striking out on a new path of her own? If you are our family, you take one last road trip (just to ensure that as soon as you get home, she'll run screaming off to college).

When my youngest son was born, I knew he would be our youngest and I tried hard to really pay attention along the way. Despite my best efforts, many of those details have slipped away (four kids can really muddy your memory). I felt the same way on this trip. I was hyper aware of every detail along the way, worried not just about my memories of it, but that this would be the final family memory my daughter would have before her life changes forever. It was a fool's errand, trying to manufacture a memory. Memories don't come from planning — they come from doing.

We had our share of discord on this journey, but probably no more than we would have had at home — it was just harder to separate the perpetrators. We had our share of giggles, too, and bonding and awestruck moments and quietude sprinkled among the noise. When the dust settles, each of us will carry a different memory of this trip. Here are some of the things I learned along the way:

• The two most important things to pack for a long family trip are patience and compromise.
• A little hokey goes a long way — a reenacted shootout, a few dumb jokes at a rodeo, and the Hokey Pokey at the wedding added just enough. Bookending the trip with the Corn Palace and Spam Museum was probably overkill.
• Always take the scenic route. Interstates are great for getting from point A to point B, but the byways will take you to places you never dreamed.
• You can't rush experience. Leave "quickly" and "right now" at home.
• You find the best things off the beaten path. We saw a small bear tearing apart a log when we decided to take one last dirt road before leaving Yellowstone.
• Join AAA, learn how to change a tire and don't forget the bug spray.
• If you are looking to live the life of a vacation, don't have a family; family life is better suited to adventurers.

"Once you have traveled, the voyage never ends.

It is played out over and over again

in the quietest chambers, that the mind 

can never break off from the journey."

— Pat Conroy, The Prince of Tides

Are you a vacationer or a traveler? Share your adventures by clicking here. *And if you're curious, or a seasoned Interstate Highway traveler, you'll appreciate the lyrics of the song mentioned in the title, by one of my favorite bar bands.

Read more about our trip on The Chicago Moms; see pictures here.

Fog Produced the Compass

There are two kinds of people in the world: those who have a good sense of direction and those who don't.

In 1993, technology gifted the directionally impaired with the 24th Navistar Satellite, completing the network now known as the Global Positioning System, or GPS. My girlfriend calls her GPS "Jill" and wouldn't leave home without her. My husband loves his GPS (affectionately known as "Gypsy"). "Take next slip road left," Gypsy says in her calm British accent. It took several months before we figured out that a "slip road" was an exit ramp. Who knew? Gypsy is now several years old and a bit past her prime, so, like every other man in the world, he would love to trade her in for a younger model. 

Personally, I have enough people telling me that I'm headed the wrong way, so I don't need to invite an electronic nag into my car. Plus, I've always had a pretty good internal compass. Of course, it helps that we live in the Chicago area, where the lake is always east, you can see one of the world's tallest landmarks (still and always the Sears Tower to me) from many miles away, and the whole city is organized according to a numbered grid.

But I maneuver well even beyond Daniel Burnham's brilliant organizational plan for the Windy City. Sure, I print out my Mapquest route before heading someplace unfamiliar, but I'm not afraid to veer off the beaten path. Nor am I afraid to stop and ask for directions when things get a little confusing (you try finding the Comfort Inn in Mt. Vernon, Ohio at 3:00 in the morning). 

My kids and I are intrepid road trippers, tackling the 1,200-mile trek to visit my parents in Florida at least twice a year for at least six years now. Our greatest dread is getting stuck in traffic on the Interstate, so we often take the next available "slip road" in search of an alternate route. With our trusty compass, we know that as long as we are heading mostly south and a little east, we can't go too far wrong. You have plenty of time to correct course over 1,200 miles, and it always feels better to be moving — even meandering slowly on surface roads — than just sitting. 

If only the metaphorical road of life were as easy to navigate. Lately I feel like my life compass is completely out of whack — like someone tied a blindfold on me, spun me around for a couple of years, and has now shoved me away, shaken and dizzy, to find my way.

I don't think I'm unusual feeling a little turned around at this particular stage in life. My twins are high school seniors now, and getting ready to begin their own journeys. The "little" boys are in junior high, and while they may still need me to drive them around, they have definite ideas about where they want to go.

I feel like I've reached a kind of crossroads, a place where I need to choose the right direction or I could get seriously lost. So, here I sit, stuck in the traffic of inertia, waiting for a sign to point me in the right direction. I hope I don't need to follow Chicago's example and burn the city of my life to ground before I can develop a workable plan. Perhaps I can rely on our current state of financial emergency for the necessary inspiration. Victor Hugo said:

"Emergencies have always been necessary for progress. It was darkness which produced the lamp. It was fog that produced the compass. It was hunger that drove us to exploration. And it took a depression to teach us the real value of a job."

The depression Hugo referred to took place in the 1800s. I guess not much has changed in the intervening 200 years. 

If along your life path, you've discovered a successful short cut, please share it in a comment here. If you know anyone who needs a good freelance writer, please point him or her in my direction. And if you travel over the holidays, may your trip be easy, your journey rewarding, and your return safe and sound.

Photo credit: Compass by Ivan Prole. 

Road Trip

There are two kinds of people in the world: those who take driving vacations and those who don't. Let me preface what may turn into a bit of a rant by acknowledging that during a summer when gas prices topped $4.00 a gallon, any vacation was a luxury (thanks, Mom and Dad).

So now that you know I'm not a total brat, I'd like to say that vacations just aren't what they used to be. I vaguely recall flying to foreign countries, sailing on the crystal clear waters of the Caribbean, and dining in ridiculously expensive restaurants in some of the world's best big cities. Though the memories are distant and few, I know I was there because I have the pictures to prove it (OK, non-digitized slides, so you'll have to take my word for it). 

Now, vacations are all about driving. I was raised in a family that traveled almost exclusively by car. We took wonderful vacations all over the eastern US and well into Canada, and my parents took great care to make the road trip part of the vacation. I don't know how they did it. Perhaps it's because we weren't going to visit anyone, we were just traveling.

I really like to drive and my four kids are topnotch travelers, so when my parents lived in Michigan, I thought nothing of throwing everyone into the car and driving the 268 miles to their house on Pleasant Lake (exactly 4.5 hours door to door). My parents now live in Florida and we have made the trip from Chicago to The Villages about a half dozen times. I know my folks are happy there in the Sunshine State, but no matter how you slice it, 1,200 miles is a looooong road trip. We've tried everything to make it better:  

• Interstate all the way (through IN, KY, TN, GA to FL; or through IL, KY, TN, AL to FL) — relatively efficient, but excruciatingly boring.
  
• Staying over one night with two full days of driving — the most straightforward and least taxing, but still boring.
• Staying over two nights and trying to do something "fun" along the way — cuts into the time you have to visit and it makes it feel like as soon as you get there, it's time to go home.
• Driving straight through starting at 2:30 in the morning — not as bad as it sounds, but pretty exhausting (and it made my father a nervous wreck worrying about us).

Part of the problem with driving between Chicago and Florida is that it's impossible to avoid Tennessee. My apologies to all you Volunteers, but the fact is that I have never been to Tennessee without encountering some form of weirdness. It's not that anything is ever completely wrong in Tennessee, but nothing is ever completely right, either. A couple of examples:

• We stopped at a grocery store that had a tattered sign on the conveyor belt that read: "Belt broken. Please push groceries forward by hand."
• We stopped at a hotel and ordered a rollaway bed. When it was delivered to the room, the springs meant to hold up the bottom half of the mattress were missing. When I pointed this out to the gentleman from housekeeping, he took off his belt and jerry-rigged it saying: "There, that ought to hold you for the night."
• We stopped for drive-thru fast food and it took 54 minutes.

While we're at it, you should also know that it is impossible to get through or around Atlanta without encountering at least one major traffic jam. It doesn't matter what time of day or what day of the week it is, if you get within 100 miles of Atlanta, you will lose at least an hour to gapers' block.

How, you may ask, do we keep from going crazy during this long journey? That I can tell you in one word: tradition. Our traditions are ancient and, truth be told, we have no idea how they started, but they always include at least these three things: Egg McMuffins for breakfast, plenty of books on tape (or rather, CD) and listening to the entire soundtrack of Fiddler on the Roof at least once.

Along the way, we've had more than our fair share of adventures: a blowout on I-65 near Elizabethtown, Kentucky — at midnight, in the rain; having to replace a damaged car-top carrier in the parking lot of Sears in Merillville, Indiana — in December, in the rain; and locking my keys, purse and cell phone in the car — first time ever, thankfully not in the rain. 

This year's excitement came in my parents' driveway when I put the key in the ignition of my car and it would not turn. I jiggled the key; I tried turning the wheel; I tilted the steering column; I tried the remote start; I even read the manual. Nothing worked. One tow, four days and $319 dollars later, I had a brand new cylinder and could turn the key just fine.

Not all of our adventures have been disastrous. On one trip home, we were stuck in a traffic jam — Kentucky, this time, on I-65. Nothing was moving for miles in either direction. I'm a patient driver, but I hate just sitting in traffic, so we decided to go off route. 

We were deep into the story of Tom Sawyer on CD, just at the part where Tom and Huck are rafting out to Jackson's Island on the Mississippi, when we somehow found ourselves driving through Mammoth Cave National Park. It was beautiful wending our way through the twisting roads of this magnificent forest. Along the way, we came upon a strange sign that read: "Road Ends in Water." I had absolutely no idea what that could mean, so we continued on over a hill when, sure enough, the road ended in water — the Green River, to be exact. 

I was just about to turn around when I saw a man at the lip of the water waving us down to him. We crept down the hill to find that he was standing on a small cable ferry. He guided us on board and ferried us across the water to where the road started up again on the other side. I swear, during those few minutes aboard the cable ferry we felt like we had joined Huck and Tom on their log raft and it was pretty cool. You just don't get experiences like that on the Interstate. On the other hand, it took us an hour and a half to go fifteen miles, we were more than happy to return to I-65 and its 65-mile-an-hour speed limit.

I'll admit that our adventures have taught us a few things. My kids have learned that there is nothing we can't handle (after a momentary freak-out, of course). They have all become expert at reading a map and looking for alternate routes. And we have heard some classic tales on CD that none of us would ever have plowed through in print (Swiss Family Robinson, Five Little Peppers and How They Grew and The Borrowers, to name just a few).

Let's end by taking just a moment to honor the two most important accessories for a successful car trip: a cell phone and books on tape. Don't leave home without them, and look for my tips for painless road trips on my HubPages soon. Share your favorite road trip adventure by clicking here.

Photo credit: Lignting fast [sic] by Pedro Vidigal via flickr.com.

Stumble It!

Leavin' on a Jet Plane

There are two kinds of people in the world: those who like to fly and those who don't. 

Remember when flying was fun? When your luggage flew for free and security meant checking to make sure you hadn't forgotten your ticket?

When I was a kid, flying was a big deal. It was expensive (by my family's standards, at least) and people still got dressed up to travel. Flying was such a special event that I remember exactly what I wore for my first flight — to Florida when I was 12 years old. My mom had made me a brand new outfit: heather brown elephant bell pants, a melon colored halter top and a cropped, window-pane-checked jacket with short princess sleeves. Wait, don't forget the platform sandals — the literal and figurative height of '70s fashion.

We were not a family of frequent flyers. My dad was, and still is, terrified of flying. His first flight, from Detroit to New York, was so turbulent that he took a train home. When he did have to fly for work, the only way he managed was with "greenies" and martinis. In other words, he was flying before he even boarded the plane.

Fear of flying takes many forms: some hate the takeoffs, others dread the landings; some fear crashing, others are troubled by turbulence. Then there is the airplane agoraphobic — the one who fears being stuck someplace where help may not be available.

For me, flying BC (before children) meant adventure — exotic vacations or weddings or warm-weather getaways in the middle of winter. I was always excited, not scared. Even the mishaps were exciting. Once, on a trip home to Detroit from Jamaica, we tried to outrun a winter storm and ended up on a Cleveland runway for 13 hours. The plane had no food, but plenty of alcohol and everyone was loaded with liquid happiness when our pilot, Captain Bobo (I'm not making that up) told us we would be taking off again and landing in New York just in time for New Year's Eve.

After I had children, I would get a little nervous when I flew alone, wondering what would happen to them if something happened to me, but the danger seemed remote. Flying with children, on the other hand, is a whole different kind of adventure and, for our family of six, prohibitively expensive. These days, when we travel en masse, it's by car.

Last week I encountered a new kind of airborne angst: putting my child on a plane by herself. She's 16 and has flown alone before, but this trip felt different. I worked hard to find a non-stop flight (we couldn't have her stranded in, say, Atlanta if her connecting flight fell through), but even that didn't completely set my mind at ease.

She was thrilled to be heading off to a creative writing residency and didn't seem nervous at all until it was time for us to part so she could go through security. Suddenly, the idea of hanging out alone for an hour or so before boarding became overwhelming and she got a little teary. This was completely unfair. Now I had to suck it up and be the calm, reassuring grown up. I hate when that happens.

I'm happy to report that she arrived without a hitch 10 minutes ahead of schedule, and called me shortly after she deplaned, chatty and cheerful in the custody of her grandparents. I have yet to recover.

Just in case you were wondering, as I often do, here is Orville Wright's concise explanation of the phenomenon of flight: "The airplane stays up because it doesn't have time to fall." Don't you feel better?

Have any fabulous travel plans this summer — flying or driving? Click here to air your qualms or share your tips.

Photo credit: Sunset wing by maliavale via flickr.com.

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