Road Trip Ruminations

Back in the day, when families took a vacation, they actually went on road trips. Not loading the car for a few packed hours on the way to the annual family reunion, but actual road trips. Growing up in the military gave me a special appreciation for the road trip and all it’s “glories’. Let me tell you about a few.

My father used to save up leave time until he had a whole month. We would plan, and decide, get out the atlas and trace the route. Mom would spend all spring sewing so that the girls had matching shirts, and so did the guys. Less chance of loosing one of us that way. Although, we did leave my brother in Pahrump Nevada, but that’s a different story.

Anyway, mom would put together travel kits; coloring books, with new crayons, puzzle books, treats to eat, books to read, and games to play. Dad would pack the car and fold down extra seats in our Vista Cruiser station wagon and make a comfortable bed that we took turns getting to lay down on. (This was also before seat belt laws).

There were always lots of good treats to eat. My favorite was when mom would get out the can of cheez-whiz and the Ritz crackers. There was beef jerky, usually reserved for my dad, and the faster he drove, the faster we all chewed our Wriggly’s gum.

We would leave early in the pre-dawn hours with the littlest kids asleep on the bed and I would sit up straight and tall in the seat by the door. I was the oldest and it was important to establish the pecking order before we even left the driveway.

Somewhere along about 3 hours later we would pull in to a rest site (which were actually pretty neat back then) or a city park somewhere and fall out of the car. Mom would dress the littles while my dad unloaded a grocery sack and cooler. Then we would have yogurt, rolls and fruit for breakfast. My dad was always trying to get us to race him across the nearest flat area; he was trying to tire us out again. Then we would all pile back in and start out again until our next rest site stop for lunch.

But as much fun as all this was, what I appreciate most about those times is that I developed a lifelong love and appreciation for landscape. Any landscape, all landscapes. See, we didn’t have pocket electronic games…we had an etch-a-sketch. We didn’t have lap top computers, we had books and car games. We didn’t have movies, we had landscapes.

To this day, I love to watch scenery fly by. I look out at our beautiful desert, (yes I said beautiful) and fantasize about the forces of nature that caused the ripple in the sediments of a particular outcrop. Then I wonder if it’s an outcropping, or an up thrust or maybe it’s what’s left of an ancient volcano. I see dry lake beds and my minds eye fills in the water to lap at the dry shores. Were there trees? Did it once look like a swamp or did it look like a mountain lake with conifers all around.

And I love the desert light. Everything is so clear and the colors are fascinating. There is no haze, no smog, and even dust is rare in the desert.

Did you ever try to count the different colors of sandstone so prevalent here? Why are there Joshua trees here and not just over there? Where did that huge boulder come from? Just how far is it from the top of the mesa to the bottom of the gorge? What causes a mesa anyway and why is it always so flat? The things I think are endless.

Sure I read, or doze or talk to my husband, but I also watch. I’ve seen lots of landscapes in my life, courtesy of a military upbringing. I’ve watched storms roll across valleys, seen tornados drop out of the skies, clouds that shot across the sky faster than we drove. I’ve watched rivers flow towards the west coast and the east coast and stood on the Continental Divide. I love landscapes.

Next time you take a trip with your family, try for a little while not putting everybody in their own little bubble. Put down the games and turn off the video. Watch what God created and talk to each other about it. See if you can discover something to be appreciative of besides the “getting there. A long drive can be an adventure.