Possibly the thing I miss most about childhood is my family reunions. My mom’s side of the family is very close, and we used to have family reunions back in Minnesota every summer. Since we are a large family and not particularly rich, these reunions were often achieved through huge family road trips.
(from Buttersafe.)
When we were in Texas, my family would drive up every couple of months. In California, it was a little more difficult, but we drove basically every summer. (Sometimes we flew if my parents had work constraints.) When we were in Chicago, we basically went up every weekend.
We always made excellent time because my parents would take shifts driving or sleeping, so we were always moving. My sisters and I were always entertained with our car games, Game Gear, and TV. (Yes, long before car companies started offering that as an option, my dad got a TV/VCR combo and an AC/DC inverter and stuck it between the front seats for us to rot our brains while on the go.)
Sometimes, Minnesota was just a meet-up point, and we would either go up to Canada to visit my aunt or down to Florida to visit our second cousins. We’d have several family cars just caravaning down the highway together. There were great stops like Yellowstone on the way out from California, being pleasantly surprised at questionable truck stop restaurants, and getting masses of fireworks on our way down to Florida.
With gas prices rising, the family more spread out than ever, and other commitments piling up, we rarely get the chance to do road trips anymore. We still have reunions almost every year, but I’ll miss the journeys.
It’s not the destination, it’s the journey.
We can drive up for Christmas this year between the 3 of us if we find a reliable-enough car. I miss road trips too.
I dunno about taking either of our cars over the Rockies in the middle of winter.