I had a plan. It was a good and creative plan.
I had intended to write this column from the road. I am on vacation and I had intended to write about how much easier traveling with children is now, than it ever was in the past.
I was going to tell you how horrible family road trips were when I was young. When I was little, my family had a green Ford station wagon. It had seats in the very back that faced each other but we never used them. Instead, we laid on the seats or on the floor. Nobody wanted the floor because of “the hump.”
In the back, we children were forced to entertain ourselves. We could color or play with small toys if we had them, though usually we were sent to the car with little to no warning about the length of our trip.
I remember once, on the way to Washington D.C., I was laying in the back coloring. At some point I fell asleep and when the sun came up, my crayons melted into the carpet in the back. My father was very mad, but it was his fault for not using the air conditioning.
I wanted to write this column about how my father did not like to run the air conditioning, regardless of how long or hot the car ride would be. The crayons were not the only victims of the rolling swelter box. It led, on several occasions, to my siblings throwing up in the car.
This was all to be used as a set up for a column about the road trip game changer – technology.
I was going to tell you how my family borrowed a mobile internet hotspot from the Marysville library and how the kids were able to watch videos and play on iPads during a portion of the drive.
I had intended to talk about how enjoyable the trip was for everyone. In a creative effort to prove this, I had planned to write my column from the van… certainly 12 hours would offer a few moments to think, collect my thoughts and write. The fact that I could do this, then use the hotspot to send my column from the road would serve as the proof for my hypothesis that road trips are better now.
I was wrong. Lord, was I wrong. I was so, so wrong.
It was loud. It was chaotic. It smelled. There was no travel-momentum because about every 40 minutes there was an announcement that “I have to go potty.” This of course made everyone else in the car wonder if they too had to go potty. Spoiler, the answer was always ‘Yes!”
These frequent bathroom stops did allow for us to change diapers. Another spoiler, with three in diapers there was literally never a time when someone wasn’t filled up.
Before vacation, I made a rule that everyone in the car had one chance to ask if we were there yet. Third spoiler, every child was out of turns before we were out of our zip code. This of course did not stop them from asking over and over. The good news is, they have used all of their turns for the next 8,794 vacations.
Everyone and everything was sticky.
There are smashed snacks everywhere.
There was never, not one single moment, when one of the children was not crying. I would like to say this was an exaggeration, but, unfortunately it isn’t. And it wasn’t the cry of pain or sorrow that allows you to feel for the child. Instead, it was the angry scream of a mad child; a child who had dropped a toy that was irretrievable; or wanted a snack but not the snack they had, the treat that is in the back of the van and cannot be reached; or wanted a drink from the specific cup another child had; or who was fighting sleep; or was just bored.
In short, it was horrible.
On a positive note, I did let go of some frustration with my father after my son threw up… twice… in the van which was at a pleasant 68 degrees. Temperature is not a factor. Apparently the chunder was not his fault after all.
And now, instead of writing from the van, in ease, with the pressure of deadline more than a week away, I had to sneak to the bathroom of our condo to frantically pound out a few coherent sentences in 20 minutes.
The good news is, tomorrow we start the long trip home.
–Mac Cordell is a reporter, with a family of eight, at the Journal-Tribune.