We have taken many family vacations, but for some reason we haven’t taken many old-fashioned family road trips. There is one though, and it is full of fun memories.
In July 2009 we were going to fly to Atlanta to see a Braves baseball game and then fly to West Virginia to meet family for a vacation and reunion. Unfortunately, our flight from Kansas City to Atlanta was going to be delayed so long that we were going to miss the baseball game. We sat in the Kansas City Airport with our kids, and discussed what we were going to do.
“Let’s just drive!”
So, we got our luggage back and got the car out of satellite parking. We stopped by a Wal-Mart to stock up on DVD’s and a portable player, snacks, drinks, a couple of pillows, and we were off.
Both of my kids get their quick wit from my husband, so at 18 and 14 they had already been perfecting that witty sibling banter! Don’t get me wrong, they are still siblings so there were definitely disagreements. For example, when we were trying to decide which movie to start our trip with. Our son pointed out that even though Batman is very good; he still wasn’t a match for a T-Rex. So, Jurassic Park won over Dark Knight. I’m sure there was also a spirited discussion (OK, argument) over who was over the imaginary center line of the backseat.
At some point one of the kids wanted to stop and see something. I don’t remember now what it was, but I commented that we couldn’t stop because of our schedule.
‘What schedule? We did this on a whim. There isn’t a schedule!’ Good point!
Eventually, I got the dreaded, ‘I’m bored.’ So, I handed our daughter a pad of paper and some colored pens and asked her to draw me a picture, and with a perfect 14 year old attitude she replied, ‘What am I, three?’ But now I have a perfect piece of artwork, signed and dated by my artist. You will notice in this piece that she is holding hands with both my husband and I. She is rather, angelic, complete with a halo. Our son – well, you can see what her thoughts were at the time about him.
We made it to West Virginia for the vacation and we were also able to stop at the Louisville Slugger factory/museum.
