Dear Road Trip

“California or Bust?” Not so fast…

As you say goodbye to your exotic world travel plans this summer: “Au revoir Paris. Ciao Italian villa. Tschüss Oktoberfest. Catch you later Aussie-mates. Adios Galapagos. Tam biet Vietnam tour. Elveda Turkish baths. Hasta Luego Cancun. Bye-bye Backroads bike trip. Farewell family reunion…”  

Say hello to the newest game in town, the old-fashioned Road Trip. After being cooped up & quarantined you might just find that the mobile version of being cooped up & quarantined provides an ironic bliss of je ne sais quoi that feeds that sense of adventure you’re longing for. Until you’re in it.

my sibs + me circa '65

I liken road trips to childbirth. Super exciting during the planning stage. Super painful during the execution phase. Super amnesia resets your memory so you do it again. That’s me. I’ve been dreaming up all kinds of road trips to visit faraway friends this summer... a rugged ride to the Rockies, a wayfaring wheels-up to W. Virginia, a meandering mosey to Martha’s Vineyard, a blissful beeline to Berkeley. You know, those dream vacations where you calmly drive in a comfortable car in perfect weather, pulling over to smell the roses, see the sights, meet the locals, taste the food.Those stripped down trips with things only your car can give you: distance from the office, your computer, your work, your bad habits, your tune outs, your TV. Replaced with a penetrable proximity to the one(s) you love the most -- for a very long time.

this week's playlist: ROAD TRIP

I have a lot of road trip stories that make for great cocktail conversation. Tip: you might want to order a double before you lend your ear lest you think I'm full of hot air. Hop in and I'll take you to the way back...

Portacrib Babies & Viaduct Spankings

It’s a miracle one of us didn’t fly out the car window. There were five kids in our family under the age of 7. I was oldest and from my point of view new babies were brought in like groceries. Every year our family embarked on a six hour road trip to one of two places: our grandparents’ house in an Amish town called Middlebury IN or to the A-Frame Chalets which were not in France, they were beach houses in Stevensville MI. We packed our stuff and 7 of us piled into our wood paneled Ford Country Squire station wagon – the longest car-boat you’ve ever seen.

To me this car felt like a house on wheels with separate rooms, each providing a cozy nook you either had to claim early or fight for later. With no seatbelt law (or maybe they’d not been invented yet) a quick slide or roll over a seatback allowed you to encroach on or attack an unsuspecting sibling when you wanted their spot or just felt like bothering someone to kill the boredom. The seat choices were: up front between mom and dad on the bench seat; share the second seat if you wanted an actual seat; make a bed on the second seat floor for a super cozy sleeping space. Then there was the back. That open room was extremely versatile – with the seats flat you could fit 4 sleeping bags in a feet-to-face-to-feet to face arrangement - a great idea with a not so great outcome. But alas, usually there was a portacrib set up back there, complete with a loose infant sleeping flat on the mattress. Mom said there was one sliver of space wedged between the crib and car wall where a smaller child could fit. Last was the coveted way-way back rear facing seat where you could stare straight into the people’s car behind you. My 5 year old sister and I mastered ‘fake talking’ back there, complete with hand gestures and lip sync to trick the folks in the car behind us to believe we were cool teenagers with lots to say. We nailed it. And let's talk about that back window the size of an open door. How did we not get sucked out, thrown out, or flung out on a fast turn?

My main memory was 85mph on the Ohio turnpike with dad's left hand on the wheel and right hang swatting anything in the second seat, warning, "if I have to stop this car for spankings..." Fun fact: I interviewed my 89 year old whip smart mother before I wrote this for her perspective on these trips. Her main response, "I don't remember much.." Super amnesia got her too. PS: She vaguely remembered one time when the wagon had to be towed and she rode in the tow truck. When I asked where we kids rode, she was quiet... (no way.... I said..)

Road trip incidents have followed me my entire life since then. I'm sure you have a few stories too. I'll tell you mine if you tell me yours.

Rain storm over the cliff (I was 10)

We were driving at night in a bad rainstorm home from a Boston trip; I was maybe 10 years old. My dad yelled out about a crazy out of control driver coming up behind us fast his weaving headlights blaring in our rear view mirror. I woke up and turned around to look and saw that car hit the guard rail and flip over the cliff. I could not be consoled for days.

A hoe-halted takeoff: aka busted bigtime (high school)

We were packed and ready to drive the insane 24 hours from northeastern Ohio to Florida for our annual spring break vacation in Dunedin FL. I was a teenage girl in search of sun and nothing would get in my way. Nothing. Until I disobeyed my dad who said I could absolutely NOT run to the drugstore real fast to pick up something because we were leaving in 15 minutes sharp. I grabbed the keys and hurried. What ensued would cost me a lot more than that drugstore item. As I pulled out of the plaza I heard a big metal sound, a massive clunk, and my car jolted to a stop. When I got out to look, I had run over a large gardening hoe left by a landscaper that was stuck hard into the side of my tire. The car and the trip were halted thanks to me.

Caffeine, Doritos & an old lady Oldsmobile (college)

Of course we drove to Florida every spring break in college. It’s a miracle we’re alive. We were sleep deprived from finals, driving god knows whose grandma’s old car with bald tires, subsisting on junk food and caffeine, driving through the night with humongous unfolded paper maps, a 40 page TripTik my dad ordered for us, and 18 wheelers playing cat and mouse with us. I remember when it was my turn to drive the early am shift the lines on the highway started playing tricks on my eyes and I freakishly realized I wasn’t even a good highway driver back then, pedal to the metal, 5 friends asleep in the back. I clenched the wheel and prayed as I uber focused on the lines just past the hood with my dad’s words echoing in my brain, "look up ahead at the horizon, not down in front of you." I remember thinking I might kill all of us that night while I kept my foot steadily on the gas.

A cable clutch cluster (newlyweds)

Or the time our early marriage stupid Vega station wagon’s clutch cable snapped on the turnpike 5 hours into an 8 hour drive on Xmas eve in a snow blizzard. Everything was closed. I had to pee. We pulled into the service area but if Mark stopped the car he wouldn’t get it in gear again. The clutch was useless. So I jumped out of the car as he drove 20 mph by the door of the building. Mark’s dilemma: we needed gas. He remembered hearing race car driver Jackie Stewart's story about how he shifted without a clutch (you can jump-start it with a running start) - our only chance at getting back on the road. As I'm on the payphone calming my worried parents all of a sudden I see our car go by, Mark was running alongside the car in the slippery snow, holding the steering wheel and popped it into gear screaming out to me, “jump in the car”!! Scared to death I’d slip and he’d drive over me, I leapt into the open window of the car headfirst and off we went. Realizing that for the rest of the trip we could not come to a stop, red lights were not an option. We literally took all right turns to get home.

Plastic teepees & prison escapees (married 3 years)

Or the time our alternator went out within a mile of the Pontiac, MI prison at night. We pulled over on the side of the road as Mark removed fuses to unessential electrical items (to conserve the waning battery). We were in the middle of nowhere. It was a veritable horror movie set and I was frantic. The choice: stay in the car roadside and get creamed by another car since ours was dark OR get out of the car and hang in the grass for an escaped convict to get me. Mark wanted to leave me and my drama behind that night. And per all of our trips it was Labor Day weekend and everything was closed. We needed a car part and needed to wait. With one dim tail light + headlight and no dashboard lights, we found our way to a hideous rural roadside motel with plastic deer & teepees lit up under the flickering neon welcome sign. I slept with my clothes and shoes on in that place and morning couldn’t come fast enough.

A stray pitbull and two babies in the back (young parents)

Another Xmas eve we were at the end of a long 8 hour drive from the grandparents’ in sub zero frigid weather when we saw a stray dog on the side of the road shivering to death. Without a word we pulled over, brought this huge dog onto the floor of the passenger seat at my feet. Everything was closed for the holidays. We drove miles off an exit to find a police station to drop him. We’ll never know his fate but I know I was his guardian angel that night. And we had a guardian angel too as we chastised ourselves the next morning thinking about our two young sons who were asleep in the back seat. It could have ended poorly.

Over built: my McGuyver minivan tricked out by Mark (4 little kids. make that 5)

My vision of a family road trip was the opposite of my husband Mark's. Mine was a throwback to a simpler time, all of us playing the license plate game or I spy something... I encouraged book reading, look out the window and learn stuff game, and family-friendly discussions about life and other fun things. Mine was a school marm approach that I was certain they'd value later. Enter dad. I’m married to McGuyver. He can build and fix anything. This was 1991, we didn't have car tv's back then. But we had a car tv. Mark went to the dark side with the kids and tricked out our car with so many chords and plug ins it's a miracle the car could still run, as he hooked up our 13 inch kitchen tv on a plastic crate right behind the front seat console with DVD player jammed under the seat and 25 8 track tapes for 14 hours worth of viewing. Mark would also shush me when I spoke so he could listen while he drove. Yes things shorted out all the time which always included a detour to find a Radio Shack along the way. To this day I hate that store that saved their day. These were the battles I lost in an all boy family (4 sons + husband.)

Pee bottle please (little guys)

Speaking of little boys, we always had an empty gatorade bottle in the car for bathroom emergencies (my makeshift McGuyver.) Funny thing, whenever we stopped at a roadside bathroom no one had to go. But the minute we got back on the road they'd yell for the pee bottle. Oh what fun it is to ride...

Hand, hoof, mouth & dead leg (7 yr old, 5 yr old, twin 2 yr olds)

And then the road trip from hell. We drove to the Outer Banks for a family vacation in a minivan that looked like the Clampetts. No seriously, I think we had a chair of some kind strapped to the top. It was a Chevy Chase vacation on every level: the day we arrived one of the kids knocked out a front tooth on the bunkbed; on day two our 5 year old woke up and couldn't walk, thinking he was stung by something in the ocean we made 4 trips to the local beach medical (surfer docs under 20) who casted him (??) and he couldn't go in the water the rest of the week. The ride home heated up when the A/C in the minivan broke we drove on the turnpike with windows open in 95 degrees. The twins got hand hoof & mouth disease that morning and screamed and itched the entire 14 hour sweaty drive home. After a week of accidents, ailments, affliction, anxiety, aggression, aggravation, animosity, anarchy and its aftermath - all I wanted was road trip amnesia.

A military threat (young teens)

We rarely threatened our kids but there's one road trip they'll remember. Toward the end of our drive from DC to Chicago the boys were out of control, hormones feet and fists flying at the South Bend IN mile marker. We saw the sign at the same time, Mark and I: Howe Military Academy, and Mark said what I was thinking, "Ok that's it, I'm pulling into Howe Military because you all need a big dose of discipline." They stopped arguing and fussing and in unison said, "What??" Mark turned off at the exit as the boys started pleading and back pedaling. "We'll stop! No! We'll be good we promise!" As we entered the campus it was perfect: cadets in starched uniforms and good form were everywhere. There was so much order. There was so much order.... Our stealth flyover tactic of a military threat was all we needed for instant peace and homeland security on the homefront. Who knew?

This week's playlist salutes all of us who get in the car and go. You're probably doing it more than ever so I thought you could use some tunes to keep the peace.

this week's playlist: ROAD TRIP

PS: I'd love to hear your road trip stories! Please tell yours in the comment section of our Road Trip social media posts today on twitter, facebook, instagram!

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In music,

Val