Thursday, June 21, 2018

Road Trips




1990- 2010 was the Era of Epic Road Trips for our family. We made multiple runs to the East coast from our Kansas home.  We thought nothing of buzzing up to Door County, Wisconsin with semi-frequency.  We loaded up our own wagon and traveled to every location where Pa Ingalls had settled the Little House gang.  From the Grand Canyon to the Statue of Liberty we saw the USA, and we did it while preserving quite a bit of the domestic tranquility.
We were blessed with three easy going kids which made the traveling feasible, but we also had a secret weapon…the little girl in this photo, Daughter #2 age five.  By this point she could out-pack me for the journey.  Those indoor/outdoor sunglasses are a tip-off that this young lady was ready for anything.  Wherever we traveled, she brought along a backpack filled with the most obscure items which we inevitably found ourselves needing.  Tape, chigger bite cream, a flashlight, a permanent marker, a bungee cord, all manner of safety items could be found in that red calico bag.  But she wasn’t merely practical, she also packed creature comforts.  Snacks, drinks, lotion, chap stick, stuffed animals, fuzzy socks, and most likely that set of Uno cards amusing her in the photo, all were things she could be counted on toting along as well.
The mere mention of an item one of us might find handy sent her riffling through her back pack.  Nine times out of ten she could lay her hands on the very item we were wishing for.  She wouldn’t say a word, but simply grin and hand it over.
She and I  make fewer epic road trips now that shuttling her back and forth between home and college not to mention our summer vacations have ended.  The last road trip we made was Kansas to North Carolina where she settled into her adult life.  Even on that trip she still thought of things we needed that I had forgotten, and still pulled them out of her bag with that same sly grin.  She is still a world class traveling companion.  In fact, the only that has really changed is her taste in sunglasses.


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5 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. Ha! I never thought of it like that, but she really is.

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  2. Cute story - what a great travel companion!

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    Replies
    1. Travel, home, wherever/whenever companion!

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  3. I am honestly dreading that last road trip where I'm taking my kids to a place where they're going to be settling in away from me. I'm sure I'll be ready when the time actually comes, but right now it makes me sad.

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Penny for your thoughts.