Claire: "I didn't want to get halfway into a trip to Yellowstone before Phil discovered what malevolent hellspawn we have for children... whom I love very much." From Modern Family
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Twiggy --
In my much younger years, the term “road trip” usually meant a group of crazy college kids heading south to Rocky Point, Mexico for a long weekend. Most of the time it was a last minute trip with not a lot of thought as to even where we would stay. We would just pile in the car, make sure we had enough money for gas, food, and cheap lodging, and go! Fast forward 20+ years. My how my life has changed...... Today my definition of a road trip is piling our family of 5 into the Toyota minivan and driving cross country and back for a total of 6 long weeks. This trip, however, has not been thrown together last minute, but has been meticulously planned over the last month by Randy. Every aspect of this trip, from total mileage and distance we must cover each day, to obscure sights we will see along the way, even down to restaurants we will attempt to hit, Randy has left no stone unturned.
When Randy first suggested yet another cross-country family road trip, I thought, or at least hoped, that it was just a passing idea. But as he started to plan the trip and talk about his idea to our friends, they all (or at least all the husbands) thought it was a brilliant idea as well as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. The wives, however, had a completely different perspective on the trip. They, like me, only saw endless hours trapped in the car with restless kids, no washer and dryer for days on end, and, dare I say it, way too many fast food stops for convenience or hungers sake.
We moved to Manhattan in 2004, and it has always been my summer routine to travel to CA for 6 to 8 weeks in July and August. Whether it was with just Reagan in the summer of 2004, or with all 3 in tow in the years after, it has always been “my thing” to leave and give the kids a taste of the west coast. This was no small feat, especially when the kids were much younger and relied on me for everything. Randy would then typically join me in Del Mar for the last 2 weeks, where we would rent a beach house and enjoy the last few weeks of summer before all returning to NY. This has been the tradition for our family so needless to say I am a bit sad that we will not be making our usual trek.
Having said all this, I do believe that this opportunity will probably never present itself again (let’s hope because that means that Randy will go back to work soon), and that this will be a wonderful learning experience for my children. Hopefully this summer will be a summer that they will always remember, one that will create life-long memories and maybe even one that they will re-create for their children in years to come. For better or worse, this will be our summer of 2013.
