On the Road Again

jane: Well, we enjoyed a Thanksgiving without intrusive pat-downs or naked x-rays because we DROVE to Florida (22 hours, count 'em) with two dogs and three audio books to spend the holiday with our extended family. The closest we got to anyone touching "our junk" were a few unwelcome crotch sniffs from our Labrador retrievers.

How were your Thanksgiving travels, Betsey?

betsey: Crowded, of course. And I had an unpleasant surprise encountering the dreaded scanner.

I actually found myself blushing as I turned and raised my arms and imagined this creepy guy in a closed room somewhere in the airport, staring at all the bodies.

On the other hand . . . it’s better than those, um,“pat-downs” we’re hearing so much about. We’d prefer to drive but it just takes too long.

jane: With all this negative talk about the TSA, I'm dreading the next time I need to fly. Rich flies all the time for business, but so far he's avoided the scanner and hasn't experienced any embarrassing body searches. At least not yet.

We've driven to Florida and back so many times now, it's old hat. We always get snarled in Atlanta traffic. When we spot the first “Ron Jon Surf Shop” billboard in southern Georgia, we get excited. Oh, and we take a break at all kinds of truck stops, grabbing bottled water, packaged nuts, and 5-Hour Energy shots to keep us “in the zone.” 

Obviously car travel times really cut into our visits, but there's always some adventure happening on a road trip. On our way home from Florida last March, for example, we got lost following some directions for a shortcut that was to save us an hour -- but cost us one instead.

Without a map – we didn't think we'd need one with our GPS – we got discombobulated with all the “recalculating” going on.

We now have a travel mantra that goes like this: You have to go west to get east; you have to go north to get south.

Yet even with occasional travel snafus, road trips provide huge, uninterrupted chunks of time to catch up and focus on each other. After all, your audience is captive! During these lengthy drives, Rich and I reconnect in ways we can't always find the time to do at home.

betsey: You’re right. Fritz and I still play “Who Am I?” (inexplicably known in some quarters as “Botticelli”). We’re both pretty easily entertained by things we see along the route (“Look, the Toledo skyline!” or “There’s that Swap-o-Rama we always pass!”). We sing hymns, munch on snacks (love those packages of peanut butter and crackers), talk sports and childhood and theology and dreams for the future. And yes, at times we complain and bicker, for what is a road trip without griping?

jane: When I was a kid, my family took two-week vacations every summer. My dad painstakingly plotted out our route and bravely battled interstate traffic to show our family of four the national wonders of Yellowstone and Mesa Verde and the Grand Canyon. On these road trips, my younger brother and I typically fought over who crossed that invisible boundary between us in the backseat, whined "Are we there yet?" and engaged in enthusiastic games of "Pee-wee Punch" that led to tearful accusations of a maimed limb. I'd bring along Archie comics and Edgar Rice Burroughs novels to read.

With no iPods or built-in DVD players in cars back then, you could NOT escape from your family.

betsey: Archie comics! Yes! Jane, you probably remember the article I wrote for TCW about my first trip to New York City. I was about eight and we were visiting my grandparents. We didn’t vacation very much when I was very young, so this was huge – tunnels and tolls and turnpikes and staying in motels, the old-time kind where your door is right on the parking lot. Dad always wore a sport coat and tie and Mom wore a summer dress. We three kids packed into our Ford wagon, fought and snacked (some things never change) and colored. My brother would get carsick a lot. ‘Nuff said.

jane: Oh, I ALWAYS got carsick. My poor parents . . . and our poor car.

Road trips today are so different than those of my youth. Remember Stuckey's and those pecan roll logs? Now Starbucks is at almost every freeway exit. And Cracker Barrel is the Stuckey's of the twenty-first century! Oh, we used to stay at Howard Johnson motels and eat at their restaurant, HoJos.

betsey: My brother always got the “Tommy Tucker” platter at HoJos. I think it was turkey and mashed potatoes. No wonder he got carsick.

jane: But back to road trips, soon after I was married, my seventy-something Nana joined me for the seven-hour drive to the Twin Cities and back. We had a very sweet time together on that intergenerational junket. I relished every minute then, and I'll never forget it.

betsey: I absolutely adored my grandmother and would have loved to spend that time with her, but she died, too young, when I was ten. I do remember a road trip I took with my dad. He decided to drive me back to college after spring break, and it was just he and I in our VW bug in the pouring rain. One of the windshield wipers came loose and I had to stick my hand out the window and hold it much of the way down I-55!

jane: About four years ago, Sarah moved to Orlando, so she and I drove to Florida – yet again! – in her little Ford Focus, its backseat and trunk crammed with all her earthly possessions.

For 20-plus hours, we acted silly, listened to her Beatles CDs, laughed hysterically, snacked, got on each other's nerves, negotiated some scary traffic jams, then laughed some more.

I still treasure that time, because I knew with Sarah moving far from home, our lives would never be the same.

I have to admit, I'm always thankful when we arrive at our destination safely. But I'm also thankful for the opportunity road trips provide for additional bonding with my family.

betsey: And nobody’s groping you as you totter through security. But Jane, I just thought of a brilliant solution for the TSA: Labs! Friendly galoots poking and snuffling at you – why, we’d all be happy American travelers! What a country!