We Are Family

Road trips seem to be very Dickensian in their nature: they are both the very best and very worst of times.  People always comment that we are so brave or fun-seeking or crazy because we drive places all the time, but the simple truth is that it is a lot cheaper than flying.  We are not looking for road warrior status; we are just looking to save a couple of hundred dollars.  Sure, I’d like to get to Chicago in two hours instead of 18.5, but I would also like to eat when I am old and maybe send my kids to college.  Maybe. 

I will start with the worst of times because our ride home was heinous and it has taken me two days being back at home to be willing to talk about it.  The ride home is always the worst because your body and brain remember just how long it took to get here and they start protesting before you even get in the car.  It’s going to be long and uncomfortable and you and everyone in the car with you knows it.  We are tired of music, tired of podcasts, tired of road noise and tired of each other.  We are driving way too many miles in one day to try and not have to drive way too many miles over two days.  No restaurants look good and would it kill the state of Missouri to have more than two Starbucks in it?  The heaviness of sitting and only sitting for so long weighs on you and it becomes harder and harder to unfurl from your car position when you stop even though you are desperately longing to move, to stretch, to bend, and straighten.  You eat Chex Mix by the handful in a desperate attempt to curb your bathroom breaks because every minute stopped is a minute you are not moving ahead.  This works well but also gives you swollen ankles and all you can think of is how desperately tight your socks feel.  The boredom is so prevalent: the same dead winter landscape in each state, the same reminders to put your shoes on as the car glides to a stop at the gas station, the same thoughts buzzing around and around your head, the same nothingness.  We are in limbo.  The ride home is most definitely the very worst of times.

This trip home from Chicago had all of the weariness listed above as well as hellacious rain and terrible driving conditions.  I am not going to complain about it one bit because we were fortunate to have a good vehicle, fortunate that Bill is an excellent driver and fortunate to have missed the freezing, flooding and tornados.  It was intense.  It was crazy-scary and at one point I had to move to the back and move SG to the front because the incessant rain on the windshield was making me tense.  Then in the back, I had to talk myself down the crazy tree because it was so much smaller back there and the rain still would not let up.  It was not a pitter patter of rain; it was a constant, incessant deluge. 

So why do we do it and is it worth it?  It is always worth it because we get to where we want to go.  We see our family and watch our kids with their cousins and think it is totally worth it.  We explore new cities and take pictures in front of cool things and the time in the car disappears.  We stay at a relative’s house and live their life for a few days and know them better.  We have fun, we stay up late, we visit local haunts and we eat all the food.  After a day or two at our destination, we don’t remember being in the car at all.

And, every now and then, I take a good picture!

The ride to our destination is so often the very best of times for us.  We are all excited about going on our trip and have saved up new music, new things to entertain us and new things to talk about.  We flood the car with our words and our laughter.  We sing along, loudly, to all the songs.  We complement each other on our range or remark how we didn’t know that the other person even knew that song.  (Bill McMahon knows all the songs.  All the songs) We pass snacks back and forth that are purchased for road trips only and everyone smiles and savors them.  We are no longer four people leading four different lives that intersect; we are four people with one common goal.  We are less interested in all the things that make us “us” and more interested in what we are going to do as a “we” over the next few days.  We shed the weight of our lives as we click off the miles and we laugh more, we talk more and we enjoy each other more.  We like the closeness the car brings and we talk more openly and honestly and we listen more clearly than we ever do at home.  There are fewer distractions in the car and sometimes as a family, you need that.  We remember that we are a family, that we love each other, that we are living our lives together and not just along-side one another.  We are a family.  That is worth all the miles down the road and back again.