Road Trips
I have driven across the country numerous times. As a kid almost every summer we would pack up our blue Chevy conversion van with the two bench seats in the back that folded down into beds and head out west to visit extended family. We would leave at 4pm when my dad got home from work, usually hit Chicago somewhere in the middle of the night and then wake up early in the morning just over the Nebraska border. Then we would spend all day driving across Nebraska, all 500 miles of flat, smelly Nebraska. We usually made it to Grandma's house in Colorado by dinner time. We'd spend a day or two there then finish the last eight-hour stretch through windy Wyoming to Salt Lake City.
I loved being in the car and watching the scenery go by while listening to my mixed tapes on my Walkman. We'd play car games or cards, jam to John Denver or sometimes my dad would listen to old time radio shoes on tape and we'd all have to listen too. We only ever stopped for gas so I learned some serious bladder control. Mom would have a packed cooler up in the front and she would pass back lunch and snacks. One time my sister Cindy kept putting her feet up on my seat and I got annoyed so I started playing with her feet. I named them Frankie and Rosie and treated them like Barbie dolls (i.e. making them talk, dressing them in whatever I had handy) until she got annoyed enough to move them out of my face.
As I got older and we started leaving my sisters in Utah for college, it got lonelier and lonelier in the car on the way home. I remember that first time when it was just me and my parents and I was the permanent navigator/help the driver keep awake person while my parents rotated driving and sleeping in the back. My mom and I played the exciting game of who had more cows on whose side of the car for awhile. (Yep, Nebraska is that exciting). It was the beginning of lots of fun adventures with just the three of us but it did take some getting used to being the only kid around.
My sister and I drove across the country one summer with two of her friends. We made lots of fun stops along the way and I remember feeling very grown up as I headed out to college for my freshman year. Then I remember driving east with my mom on my way to get married. I was so desperate to see my fiance that we drove through a serious ice storm from Detroit to Rochester that put my mom's driving ability to the test. Just two weeks later, after getting married, I found myself wedged into my parents' Buick with all of my new husband, his belongings and our wedding gifts as we moved across the country for him to start at BYU and to begin our life together. We stopped at my Grandma's house in Colorado and it was the last time I ever did since her health declined and she died not long thereafter. I was glad to have shared that childhood experience one last time with my husband. Then I remember we talked about what to name our children the entire eight hours from Denver to Salt Lake and yet we still didn't agree on one.
It was only after we got married I made it all the way to California and we drove there from Utah probably eight times, only to end up moving there later. One of my favorite things to do was to stop in Primm, Nevada and ride the roller coaster there. The rest of the drive was pretty scary through barren desert with the exception of the 10 miles or so where you cut through Arizona and it was rocky and beautiful. Then we drove one last time from California to Ohio and then on to Maryland a year later and here I've been for awhile. But I've loved crossing our beautiful country and seeing what I've seen. It takes a long time to drive it but there is a charm to actually seeing where you are going that I love about road trips. I like to know where I am and see a new place and add to the map inside my head that gets me around. I love the thrill of watching for the sign and then crossing into a new state. It is a life experience for which I am grateful.
I loved being in the car and watching the scenery go by while listening to my mixed tapes on my Walkman. We'd play car games or cards, jam to John Denver or sometimes my dad would listen to old time radio shoes on tape and we'd all have to listen too. We only ever stopped for gas so I learned some serious bladder control. Mom would have a packed cooler up in the front and she would pass back lunch and snacks. One time my sister Cindy kept putting her feet up on my seat and I got annoyed so I started playing with her feet. I named them Frankie and Rosie and treated them like Barbie dolls (i.e. making them talk, dressing them in whatever I had handy) until she got annoyed enough to move them out of my face.
As I got older and we started leaving my sisters in Utah for college, it got lonelier and lonelier in the car on the way home. I remember that first time when it was just me and my parents and I was the permanent navigator/help the driver keep awake person while my parents rotated driving and sleeping in the back. My mom and I played the exciting game of who had more cows on whose side of the car for awhile. (Yep, Nebraska is that exciting). It was the beginning of lots of fun adventures with just the three of us but it did take some getting used to being the only kid around.
My sister and I drove across the country one summer with two of her friends. We made lots of fun stops along the way and I remember feeling very grown up as I headed out to college for my freshman year. Then I remember driving east with my mom on my way to get married. I was so desperate to see my fiance that we drove through a serious ice storm from Detroit to Rochester that put my mom's driving ability to the test. Just two weeks later, after getting married, I found myself wedged into my parents' Buick with all of my new husband, his belongings and our wedding gifts as we moved across the country for him to start at BYU and to begin our life together. We stopped at my Grandma's house in Colorado and it was the last time I ever did since her health declined and she died not long thereafter. I was glad to have shared that childhood experience one last time with my husband. Then I remember we talked about what to name our children the entire eight hours from Denver to Salt Lake and yet we still didn't agree on one.
It was only after we got married I made it all the way to California and we drove there from Utah probably eight times, only to end up moving there later. One of my favorite things to do was to stop in Primm, Nevada and ride the roller coaster there. The rest of the drive was pretty scary through barren desert with the exception of the 10 miles or so where you cut through Arizona and it was rocky and beautiful. Then we drove one last time from California to Ohio and then on to Maryland a year later and here I've been for awhile. But I've loved crossing our beautiful country and seeing what I've seen. It takes a long time to drive it but there is a charm to actually seeing where you are going that I love about road trips. I like to know where I am and see a new place and add to the map inside my head that gets me around. I love the thrill of watching for the sign and then crossing into a new state. It is a life experience for which I am grateful.
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