48 hours ago, La Familia ventured out for “Summer Road Trip 2010.” Only time is going to tell if loading three kids under the age of three in the car for long periods of time is going result in irreparable damage to this family unit. As a kid, I fondly remember all of those fun family trips we were able to take to exotic locations such as Kansas, Nebraska, and South Canada (also known as “the U.P.) I remember the backseat battles for supreme control of prime seat space, I remember endless threats of “I am not afraid to pull this car over” or dad saying “We are never going on another family vacation......EVER! (this was often said at some point of the return trip home). I remember my sister always sitting in the back amidst all of her junk, which was really just a traveling representation of the crap-hole of a room she had back home. I don’t remember family trips before we got a mini-van, but most of those trips post mini-van are still seared into my conscious. Before we head off on SRT ’10 to make new memories and stories, I wanted to reflect on previous family road trip highlights.

• Throwing rocks in the water pretty much wherever we went, it seemed like no matter where we went on family vacations we always ended up someplace where a person could throw rocks in the water. It made no difference as a little boy whether that water was the Current River in Missouri, Lake Michigan, or the pond at Grandpa’s house, throwing rocks never got old, and it still doesn’t.
• Dad running over a raccoon and her babies somewhere in Northern Michigan. In what everybody in the family will agree was the single most traumatic event ever on a family road trip. The most memorable element of the whole experience was my sister screaming “Go Back we have to save them” and “Why didn’t you avoid them?” and then my dad yelling back from the front seat “I didn’t want to drive into the ditch” and “We are not going back to save them.” These both seemed like fairly logical answers to me at the time, but they didn’t seem to satisfy my sister, who used every opportunity on the remainder of the trip to remind my dad he was a baby raccoon killer.
• Everybody has a barfing in the car story, and I am no different. The most memorable time didn’t actually involve me, or did it, I can’t honestly remember. We were on vacation with family friends, and we spent the day in Leadville, CO (elevation. 10,152 feet). The only thing I remembered doing while in the highest incorporated city in the US was playing on the merry-go-round.....lots. I am not sure if it was the high elevation or the hours of spinning on the merry-go-round, but on the return trip back down the winding road there was lots of stopping to barf in the river along the roadside. (UPDATE: After talking with my dad, I discovered that I threw up the whole first day we were in CO, but it was actually Adam who did most of the barfing on the return trip from Leadville).

We have officially put the first long day of traveling behind us and now are relaxing and recovering in Missouri. We will hit the road again in a couple of days to push on to the cooler weather of Minnesota. More posts to come.