Road Trips

The last family roadtrip was when the boys were in high school. We drove from Diamond Bar, California to Casper, Wyoming with voices in the backseat chanting, "Are we there yet?"always. And asking when it was my turn to drive, "Does Mom have to drive?" Followed by the grumbling assertion that, "We'll never get there."



Through the California deserts, the mountains of Arizona and the canyons and inclines of Utah, "Are we there yet?" became a mantra which varied only in the loudness and intensity with which it was delivered by two brothers certain there parents were put on earth as some kind of punishment. From time to time, the thought that may be in the olden days, one of the reasons people died young was because on the wagon ride out west, some parents just could not take, "Are we there yet?" one more time...

Then came the great unending flatness of the Great Plain of Wyoming which tested our resolve to drive to my sister-in-laws. For six hours the road was flat and straight. The scenery was as interesting as if it were the largest piece of paper in the universe.

We came to the first turn in the road. The magic began. There were antelope leaping near the road. In the distance, a double rainbow arched to our destination city, a place where big bucks ambled across the main street. We weren't in L.A. any more.


We not only got there. We went on to South Dakota. Driving through some of the most scenic parts of the country, places where Dances with Wolves was shot, where the likenesses of our greatest Presidents were dynamited out of the mountain rock.
The grandness and vastness enthralled me. I told my husband that I could live there.
He looked at me straight in the eye and said, "You- here? You would not make it past ten days of being snowbound in the winter."

Looking back, this was one of my favorite trips. If you think about yours, I think you will find that life is richer when we take it all in, including the imperfect parts.