With all the places we have been visiting on the arc tour, I’ve thought back on some road trips that I have taken. Road trips are funny things. You set out with all these expectations for how it will turn out, but very often the unexpected happens. Sometimes that’s a very good thing. And sometimes not. But either way, without a doubt, the unexpected is what leaves the strongest impression.
I have two road trips I look back at, and both left an indelible impression on me but in very different ways.
For the first one, my husband and I and our two daughters, ages 9 and 12, were headed to Yosemite. Our minivan was packed to the gills–two inflatable rafts, water toys, hiking gear, groceries, ice chests filled with sodas, shoeboxes of homemade chocolate chips cookies, games–you name it. We were ready for a week of fun.
The drive from our house in San Diego to Yosemite is about a nine hour drive when you count in potty stops and lunch breaks, but for the most part it is an easy straight-shot kind of drive–except for The Grapevine (cue in an echo here.) The grapevine is a steep mountain pass between the LA basin and the central valley of California. In winter time it is not as big of a problem–unless it snows of course–but in summertime the temperatures soar and as a result many cars overheat trying to get over the pass. Ha! That wasn’t our problem! Lucky us, we blew a whole gasket-- right about when we reached the crest at the town of Gorman.
Not to disgruntle Gorman fans, but short of breaking down in the middle of the desert, it’s about the worst place you could think of to break down, but we cruised off the ramp, our car smoking behind us, and we made it to a gas station. Of course the girls are worried at the smoke, I am worried that we will be spending a week vacation in lovely downtown Gorman, and my husband is worried that he is not going to make it in time today to float down the river in Yosemite.
We find out there is a Ford dealership in Bakersfield–a mere fifty miles away–which was the direction we were headed and so we call to have the car towed. The tow truck driver arrives, hooks our car up and he says he can give us a lift there too. Hooray! We pile in. The problem is, the cab is very small. Our two girls squeeze in the middle between my husband and the driver, and the only place left for me to sit is on my husband’s lap. Very tight, but hey, it is only fifty miles of being twisted like a pretzel, right? And what choice do we really have? Five miles down the road my husband’s legs are going numb, we have run out of small talk with the driver and my neck has a kink. Are we having fun yet?
Then the unexpected happens. My oldest daughter,who is teetering the teens years at age twelve, nudges me and whispers, “Mom, the zit on my nose has popped. I need a tissue.” Ah! A mother and daughter moment. My chance to nurture my blossoming teen and make the situation better. I unzip my purse on my lap and search for a tissue. Every corner. Even a used one. I am getting nervous. Anything. But there is nothing. What kind of mother am I? My own mom carried everything in her purse. She would have produced tissues, bandaids, even a kitchen sink to wash your hands in and then your choice of towels to dry them. I am pathetic. I look at my daughter. Her nose is erupting like Mt. Vesuvius. I look back through my purse in earnest. And then I spot it! I grab it and at the same time I become hysterical with laughter as I pull it out. “This is all I have, Karen,” I say and I hold up a tampon for her to use. Her eyes grow as wide as our blown gaskets. “Come on, it’s absorbent isn’t it?” At that point we all broke into hysterical laughter. We forgot about her nose, our broken car, and our broken vacation. The tow truck driver thought we were insane. And maybe for that moment we were. My husband was certainly in serious danger of me peeing on his lap, which made us all laugh harder.
We did end up making it to Yosemite, renting a car in Bakersfield, and I know we had a fabulous time, but it is always that unexpected turn on our road trip that we remember the most. We still laugh about it.
I am not sure there is any lesson to be learned here, except that teens do survive unprepared moms, road trips are filled with finite expectation, but infinite possibilities, and sometimes, given enough time, the worst can turn out to be the best.
And now that this has turned out to be way longer story than I expected, I will save my other “indelible impression” from a road trip for tomorrow.
Do you have a road trip memory that stands out for you? Share here, or if it’s a long story, let’s hear it on your blog. Leave a link!
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