It’s been two years since the first time we took a pretty big trip across the country. My children have seen 27 states (I think that’s the final count as of this time), 8 national parks, several mountain ranges (much to the chagrin of our RV’s brake pads) and have been to countless theme parks, playgrounds, pools, zoos and  hiking trails. They have grown up knowing that every summer we will leave our home and live somewhere else. Sometimes one place, sometimes two, sometimes many, many more.

They never ask about their beds, their bedrooms, their toys. They never get nostalgic for the places that one would think they should. And I never realized it until now. In teaching The Odyssey to ninth graders, we discuss how the Lotus Eaters lose hope for home after eating the lotus. Maybe my children are lotus eaters every time they take a trip with us, forgetting everything before, never caring for much besides what’s ahead.

A friend asked, “Don’t your children ever ask to go home?” And I considered this. A question that should have an easy and clear answer. However, I couldn’t really say. They never ask about home, they rarely even talk about it. Everything is about what we are doing today and what ripe adventure is ready to be had.

Celia’s stomach was off on the first leg of our stay. I asked her what she thought it was and she said, “I don’t know Mommy, maybe I’m just homesick.” I laughed at her. The idea of being homesick when we were all jam-packed into this tight space together, forcing a in-your-face and not-so-fun family time. Turns out, she thought that maybe being out of the physical building of our home could actually make her sick.

Home is an idea. Not always a place. I have felt at home in many spaces this summer and some of them are certainly not my own home. In this RV, wherever it is parked and whoever is in it, it’s easy to feel attached to it, charmed by it, comforted by it like it is a home.

The dog has a specific place she sleeps under a chair, the kids switch couch-floor-couch-floor and fall asleep beside each other. When you lay down in the bed, you can feel when someone walks on the other end of the vehicle. It’s quaint in as many ways as it’s inconvenient and annoying. It’s adorable in as many ways as it’s absolutely insane. But it’s ours.

As vagabonds, however, we only get a B+. We have nearly everything under the sun in our big rig and one would be hard pressed to call what we live in “roughing it.” But, it’s indeed small, it’s indeed on wheels and it indeed does not have a washer and a dryer.

This trip we had some major belt issues related to the RV’s AC, a belt that caused us to lose power steering getting onto the ferry to this little island. With only two turns to get to the RV park off the ferry, we were able to stay and find a mechanic to fit it.

When we arrived, we were met with 5 pretty solid days of pouring rain which allowed for very little outdoor cooking and: A lot. Of wet. Towels. My feet were always damp, either stepping in a puddle or getting splashed by almost stepping in a puddle. I learned to love my black flop flops that I purchased just before I left at Target for 3.99.

And quite possibly more than once I wanted to go home. To a place where I could eat less sandwiches and hot dogs and maybe more vegetables. To a place where I didn’t have to “check the levels” before I used the restroom. To a place where I just threw stained clothes in the washer.

Travel does that to you. Makes you see all of those luxuries that you kind of take for granted, all of a sudden things that are inconvenient aren’t all that inconvenient.

And you adapt. The kids adapt. The golden retriever adapts.

A rooster crows all day near our RV park, my daughter learned to love an outdoor shower stall after the beach, I got up early and drove the golf cart to a coffee shop that had the best coffee I had ever tasted. We had a mechanic come to our RV for the first three days and work on the repair, sometimes just realizing he didn’t have the correct part. We adapted and kind of loved it. The RV did too.

Now we move on to stay outside bigger cities and not on a little island like these past 10 days. We will stay in nicer RV parks, visit other friends and family, have other minor snafus (knock on wood), but we won’t ever ask to go home.

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Bricks and mortar make a life.

But the laughter of children makes a home.”

– Irish Proverb

 

The traditions of travel are this: pack the bags, pack the car, get out the map, plan the stops, check in to the hotel or the inn or the RV park, plan meals, plan family games, plan outings, take lots of pictures. Make memories. Rinse. Repeat. Rinse. Repeat.

As a woman and as a mother, as a teacher and as a vagabond-stuck-in-a-Gen-X’s body, I find an interminable itch in me to travel. It’s probably the busy-ness of our lives— the work-school-family-fun balance that is so hard to strike. Being away helps you to feel like you are released from your normal responsibilities. No vacuuming. No dishes. No meal planning. No laundry. No rinsing, no repeating. Your family gets a break. A break you’ve looked forward to. A break you deserve.

When I feel this itch lately though, I take the time to remind myself of this: to be on the move is precious, but to stand still is sometimes necessary. Home is something to be cherished. Homes are a delicately constructed puzzle. Your memories, your experiences and your belongings are all little artifacts that make up the jigsaw pieces.

We, in this family, have the habit of loving old houses. Houses that need a lot more work than we can ever afford or have time to do. We’ve lived in the construction and around the construction in two different homes. Our children have seen the changes that come with taking out a wall or putting in a window. They know, like anything, our home is always a work in progress. We like to think our home is a reflection of our optimism, our dedication. Never finished, never perfect, but ours.

My mother lives in my own childhood home. The walls where I was held as an infant. The bedroom I spent blaring teenage music. The family room that held groups of friends for countless sleepovers and birthday parties.  Lately, I have realized how luxurious it is to be able to visit the home where you came of age with your own children. To see them play in the same driveway and cu-de-sac, to see them ask where you slept, where your played, where you walked when you were their age. The comfort that returning to my childhood home brings me is hard to put into words. It’s nostalgia mixed with contentment mixed with a deep desire to hold onto your youth.

In returning from the home where I grew up, I think about how I am making a place to grow up for Parker and Celia. The traditions we nourish, the laughter we share, the chasing we do around and around the downstairs “circle.” These are all things that make up a home. And, although travel has been a great friend to us and has made our lives rich in experience, our home provides something different entirely. Lazy pajama mornings that turn into lazy pajama days, sticky cinnamon roll breakfasts, rainy day Lego building, mugs of steaming hot cocoa after snowman building, hot and humid afternoons pretending in the backyard, backpacked treks from the school bus through the front door, the smell of freshly popped popcorn for a night on the couch, gentle good nights in the hallway well after bedtime, a golden retriever who only goes to bed once we all are tucked in. Rinse. Repeat. Rinse. Repeat.

The article below will be published in the summer edition of Mamatoga Magazine online this summer.

 

“People don’t take trips, trips take people.” -John Steinbeck

 

When I was in sixth grade, my best friend’s family drove in a minivan ALL THE WAY to Florida. I say it in all caps because to me this was amazing. To traverse the entire eastern seaboard with a family of seven? How? How long? What did you do? How often did you stop? So many questions.

 

I was raised mostly as an only child, the one child in a “his, mine and ours” family. My siblings never really vacationed with me except when I was a baby. Once I got to prime family vacation age, everyone was grown up. No minivan, no big trips to the beach or the lake. It was mostly just trips to my backyard pool or to family members’ homes.

 

So, as a parent, I was not built for the family road trip. I knew no cooler packed with Hi-C and sandwiches, no fun road games with brothers and sisters, no songs that we sang as we made our way to the next stop. I was untrained, unexposed, unwise to the ways of the road tripping family.

 

But somehow, I picked it right up.

 

As all things in childhood, my hunger for something I didn’t have as a girl became a larger than life desire as an adult. “We will camp!” “We will road trip!” “We will buy an RV and travel the country!” All things sounded a little bit crazy but sometimes the craziest ideas end up being the most rewarding.

 

When you road trip as a family, you compromise the bliss of an all inclusive resort with drinks with umbrellas for sandwiches packed in a cooler at an interstate rest stop. You don’t have a cabana with your own waiter but a plastic bracelet that gets you into the pool, the water park and a free freeze pop afterwards.

 

There are trips in life that are transformative for us as people. The backpacking trip in Europe, the mission trip to South America, the volunteer trip to Brazil— these types of trips can really make gentle imprints on who we become, the hunger we develop for travel and our affection for other places.

 

But the trips we take with our families are cut from a different cloth. They have a rawness and purity that say, “this is a memory, this is part of their childhood.”

 

No pressure, right?

 

We plan vacations because we need a break. We plan road trips because we need an adventure. Sometimes we need both and that happens too. No matter which way you cut it, time away with your family is: Time. Well. Spent.

 

This summer, as you tick off the items on your summer trip pack list: a multi-pack of sunscreen, big-as-your-head box of goldfish and 800 juice boxes (check!), use what I call the Seven Tips for a Good Summer Road Trip listed below.

 

1. SPF OMG

I have a redhead. Everywhere we go, I get the, “I hope he’s wearing sunscreen!” comment. (This is semi-annoying but sometimes a helpful reminder) Since the sun is like, always there even on a cloudy day (not just in a song) I always overload my car, my hubby’s car, my bag, my purse, the kids bags and even leave a couple bottles by the door for those “Mommy, can we just play outside?” days.

 

If your kids are like mine and resist the sunscreen process as if you are spreading poison on their skin, the front door/car glove compartment/ purse sunscreen is your friend. A rub or a spread or a spray before you rush out the door can ease your peace of mind for outdoor play all day long.

 

2. Dirty Devils

Baby wipes are not just for babies. They are an equal opportunity cleaning agent. Don’t leave on a road trip with anything less than one package per person. Trust me.

 

3. Because: Thirst.

On our cross country trip last year, we would keep a freezer full of water bottles and a fridge full of water bottles. This was great because we always had something to throw in a cooler for a picnic or place on boo boos. It helped in keeping us cool in the hottest places but also helped to keep us not dying of thirst in the middle of Utah.

 

 

4. In Every Crevice (How do sand/dirt/crumbs get EVERYwhere?)

 

Baby powder is your friend. It eases sand, dirt and even a little stink off your little person. Baby powder is a post bath and post beach staple in our house. It’s magic pixie dust. And who can say no to that smell? Delicious.

 

 

5. Fun Last Minute Bag

Bathing suits, extra underwear and everything listed for numbers #1,2,3 and 4 should go in your last minute bag. This is great to have in the car just-in-case you make an unplanned stop to see the National Potato Museum in Idaho (True story).

 

6. Summer Bucket List

Sometimes you just need a good list to keep you focused day to day. I read an article recently that said kids need to be bored in order to learn to play on their own. They need more time rather than more toys. They need adventure rather than screen time. Although k think I fail at this during the school year, I do try to be more attentive to it in the summer.

 

A summer bucket list is the perfect antidote to your little one’s whine, “I’m boooored.” It presents clear goals and “to dos” ( like any Mom, I like a good list I can just go after), makes for a great way of finding out what sounds like fun to your little people and helps you to guide your next (OMG it’s raining for the fourth day in a row) panic. I like to put all of my favorites on there but make sure the kids have some ownership too.

 

7. Christmas Card???

I have an annoying habit (I try to keep it quiet because other Moms will shoot daggers if they know you do this) of doing my Christmas card pictures in the summer. It’s been the best thing I’ve done and simplifies the holiday rush so much. Reasons this works are below:

 

1. Weather always cooperates.
2. There’s no pressure if the photos are terrible, you just take some more another time.
3. Everyone looks better with a tan!
4. You can order cards before prices go up (I do mine in early October).
5. You can incorporate the scenery from a trip or vacation which make the picture more original and not too “posey.”

 

Cheers to your summer getaway be it a road trip, a beach house, a camping trip or an island getaway. You deserve it, Mama, all of it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I write this from the front seat of the RV, where I sit with my earphones on, watching things on the Internet and trying to form into words what the past two months has meant to me. Tonight is the last night of our trip, of THIS trip.. You see, I didn’t like it at the start of our adventure when people would use the term “once in a lifetime” and “trip of your life” because well, to state the obvious, that puts a whole lot of pressure on this one trip.  I thought to myself, “No, no, there will be tons of RV trips, many, many cross country adventures.The kids are so young! There’s so many trips yet to take.”

Sigh. Now I know what a trip of a lifetime really is.

It is not a limiting phrase, just an accurate one. I will never, ever, in this lifetime have the summer back when my children are 3 and 5. I will never spend the summer of my 36th year eating peanut butter and jelly, sprinkling baby powder on dirty feet and combing dog hair from every surface of the RV while also watching the movie Charlotte’s Web for the 13th time. I will never, ever learn the hard way that Class C recreational vehicles aren’t made to go on every route that Google Maps directs you to go. I won’t be able to teach my children the game “Mother May I” or “Father Father Let Me Down” for the first time again. I won’t have to gulp back frustrated tears when the dog has diarrhea on the way back from Mount Rushmore only to find moments later that we roll into a place that has a carpet cleaner, an RV wash and a pet wash all in one.

I won’t get to say to the curious RV neighbor or nice waitress, “We’re driving cross country. From New York,” with the same brand of pride and joy. There’s just no way to replicate that.

Our family dinner table tradition, as for many families, is to tell the best part about our day. So often, Celia is the one who, bereft of any concrete memory of the day, will say “this right now” (pointing downward) for her favorite part of the day. It’s my favorite thing that she says. “This right now”. Us being together talking about our day. Us gathered around this table. Us,  just us. Right now.

I’ve had a lot of “this right now”s this trip. A time when you think, “this will never happen again quite like it is happening now.” You know if you tried to manufacture or force the same activity or memory or event, it would come out hollow, empty, devoid of real import. “This right now” is what we grasp for. As children, we grasp for it as we move on up through the ranks of adulthood. As young adults, we grasp the non-responsible time in life before we end up married with children and (gasp!) real jobs and bills. And then, as parents, we grasp onto the “this right now” with every syllable of baby babble, every student of the week certificate, every morning cuddle or middle of the night plea for a drink of water. This right now is sometimes the only thing that stops us. Makes us surrender. Take notice. And watch. “This right now” will soon be “that back then” and it will never feel quite the same.

Tonight is our last night sleeping in the RV together like this. A three year old cuddled on the floor with her dog. A five year old on the couch still with his glasses on. Quiet breaths and soft snores are heard as I type away. The dog gets up for water and you can feel the vibration in the back bedroom.

I’m inexplicably content with my this right now. This right now is the summer that I learned that I loved my family more deeply and more purely than I ever thought. This right now is the summer I learned that, even when facing brakes that are on fire and ants that are infesting, my husband and I can still sit down and watch the movie RV and laugh hysterically. This right now is the sweet spot. The accomplishment of the trip is behind us yet a cushion of comfort in knowing it’s not yet truly the end. I hope I can bottle up this right now and tap into it anytime I get nostalgic the next couple of months. I’m going to need it. Walking away from a two month period where your only goal was to travel and enjoy your family is not easy. We are blessed to have so many “this right now”s in our arsenal. It’s what will make us stronger individuals, a stronger family unit and help us as we live, and grow, and change.

And, if Celia or Parker or anyone were to ask, this right now has not just the best part of my day, my week or my summer, it’s been the best part of my life.

  
Miles traveled (by the end): over 6,000
States visited/Driven through: 17 

RV Parks visited (by the end): 13

National Parks Visited: 6

Junior Ranger Badges: 3 (per kid)

Number of times we made a wrong turn: 17

Tupperware bin baths: 34

S’mores consumed: 27

RV Park mini golf courses: 6

RV Park petting zoos: 1

Rest Stops: 305

Bolts found in tire: 1

Friends and Family Visited: 8

Boxes of Annie’s Mac and cheese prepared: 56

Battery Changes: 2

Nights spent “Wally docking”: 3

Dog poop while driving incidents: 1

Horrible wifi connections: Every single one

Number of key chains acquired as momentos: 11 per kid

Minutes scrubbing stains out of carpet or upholstery from dog or children: 44

Playgrounds visited: 12

Yelp reviews read: 345

Sandwiches made: 104

Kids movies watched: 567 (each movie was watched roughly 9 times and we have a lot of movies)

Ant infestations: 1

Money spent in laundry quarters: $125.75

Nights Out with a babysitter: 3

Memories Made: 5,001

Stories to tell: Countless

The countdown is on. Roughly one week until we head home and I am ready to unleash list after list for you in blog posts. It’s been a great run, I do know that I am going to miss it but I am getting to a point where I am not a good tourist anymore. I’m ready to hang up my explorer hat for a bit. So, I bring you a list of things I found myself doing this summer and never really expected. 

    

  
1. Eat ramen noodles past the age of 26.

2. Reheat coffee in a saucepan. 

3. Keep the mop and broom in the shower. 

4. Watch the worst TV possible because, well, it’s TV!!!

5. Make a clothesline out of bungee cords.

6. Realize a double stroller doubles as a laundry shuttle. 

7. Sneer at the idea of eating S’mores, hot dogs or any kind of turkey sandwich again. 

8. Develop a pure and deep love of the Wal-Mart Corporation. 

9.  Become overly focused on obtaining quick and reliable wifi. So much that you get lost in your email when you get it. 

10. Become an expert at making toast without a toaster. 

11. Febreeze clothes in lieu of washing them. 

12. Appreciate and often fantasize more than you ever thought possible about the idea of a house with separate beds and separate rooms for everyone.

13. Bathe your children in Tupperware bins. 

14. Be the type of person who writes opinionated and detailed Yelp and TripAdvisor reviews as a civil duty to my fellow man. 

“Year after year in a good life, you realize your family is the journey.”

                – Ron Carlson 

                  “A Kind of Flying”

 

  

  

  

 There’s a quote that keeps echoing in my mind from a story I teach. It’s one I’ve written about before and seems to apply to this trip more than ever. When you travel with just your own family and only see friends at intervals, you develop a closeness that’s different than the day to day closeness you’ve come to know. This is a closeness that comes when you stretch a rubber band too tight, so tight you know it’s going to come back and sting you, but you stretch it anyway because, hey, you’ve only got this one rubber band.

In this analogy, we are the hand holding the rubber band. And each twist and turn of our journey might test our patience, test our character, and test our love for one another is the stretch to the rubber band. Sometimes it feels like it can never break. And sometimes it feels like a firm, thick, wee little band. One that won’t give a bit.

Confession: I’ve made some major snafus in planning along the way. I am not auditioning for Queen of the Road Trip anytime soon. Clearly a city girl, I have taken advantage of ever available cell service and GPS navigation. I rely on a store on every corner. I am ever optimistic that, “well, we’ll figure it out.”

And we do. Eventually. But our record in three of the six national parks we’ve seen is not too good. And since I don’t really know what I don’t know– sometimes I am uber confident , maybe a little wise guy about it and soon we are passing the continental divide twice in a half hour and burning the heck out of our breaks. And that’s where I cry a little bit. Okay, maybe more than a little bit. 

And I break the rubber band.

Michael says to the kids that mistakes are only okay if you learn from them. Since I have successfully gotten us lost in three national parks in a 36 foot RV that can’t make U-turns, I would say I’m not learning from all my mistakes. But, in taking the bad with the good, I guess it’s just part of what happens when you play with rubber bands. 

This summer has had its tense moments. Mechanical related, poop related, water related, ant related, bicycle tire related and stolen laptop related. There’s been some snaps of the rubber band. It’s stung once or twice. 

We’ve set out to explore. But sometimes, I don’t feel like exploring. I want to binge watch Real Housewives and eat food from a takeout place from home. I want to call a girlfriend to come over for a late night chat on my porch. I want to be whatever the opposite of an explorer is. For a day.

And then the feeling passes and I find myself planning routes and reservations and things to do. Don’t get me wrong, a lot of what we do is last minute and unplanned: like a trip to the Potato Museum in Idaho or a stop in Cody, Wyoming, the home of Buffalo Bill. We are good at flying by the seat of our pants. We are definitely good at that. Kind of like we’ve been flung by a sligshot (rubber band analogy too much?) into the world of travel. 

As we round out the last three weeks (and we still have to make it from Wyoming to New York), I keep wondering how I will ever summarize this summer in a conversation in passing come this Fall. The rubber band metaphor seems a little verbose. Splendid? Superb? Amazing is much too overused. Sweet? Too quaint. Awesome? Too non-descript. 

And then I think again of this quote from my favorite Ron Carlson story. When the character is asked what marriage is like, he answers:

“Well, I said, it’s not life on a cake. It’s a bird taking your head in his beak and you walk the sky. It’s marriage. Sometimes it pinches like a bird’s mouth but it’s definitely flying, it’s definitely a kind of flying.” 

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

It might be because I read this today, or because I cried at the movie Inside Out to start the summer, or because I am dreading the looming end to this trip. But I have been stopping a lot, looking around and taking little  pictures with my mind (okay, taking real pictures too, who am I kidding) and trying not to let this summer slip away. Trying to hold it close, keep it hidden, make sure that time doesn’t steal it too swiftly. 

This summer will never happen again. We will never take two preschoolers, and an eight month old puppy on a trip across the country. We will never have as much concentrated time together as a family. And we will never take the first trip with our RV again. 

There was an article I read recently that we look upon experiences versus posessions with a greater fondness than any material item could afford us.  The value of the money spent on the experience is greater simply because of the happiness it assures you. This includes experiences where every part of the trip wasn’t exactly perfect. We can trick ourselves to forget the rough moments. The ant problem, the RV repair bill, the middle of the night dog diarrhea, the bathroom flood– all the things that might have made life a little more stressful and difficult. Core memories trump those memories. Period. Even better, the experiences we have will always make us happier than the things we buy. 

I find myself approaching this trip much like I approach parenthood. The mantra, “this may seem tough or tiring, but you will long for this brand of tough and tiring someday.” Taking a cold shower now and then, spending $10 in quarters to do just a couple day’s worth of laundry, stepping in dog poop in the middle of the night and getting lost on windy roads in California are all annoying experiences. They seem stressful. They seem like tests. But, you see, in hindsight, they are just tiny blips on the radar, mere tremors on the Richter scale. The real stuff is the good stuff. And that settles in deep. 

While we bounce from place to place, I wonder how much the kids will actually remember. I hope that we will share some of the same core memories, but even if we don’t, I hope time will slow down in this final month, letting all of us stop and savor each stop, each adventure, each juicy moment. Because we will never experience it in just this way again. 

 Sometimes it’s hard to go back to a place you look upon with great nostalgia and affection. Sam Francisco has been my favorite city since first visiting in 2007. It’s where I frolicked as a 26 year old with my then boyfriend, Michael. We took a helicopter ride, went to a Giants game, went wine tasting and walked through the city hand in hand. 

I said yes in this city. Yes to marrying a man who has shown me more in the past eight years than I ever could have expected. Yes to love, adventure, travel, laughter, experience. Yes to a good life.

So many things with Mike start with saying yes. Yes, I will buy a house with you after only dating a year and a half. Yes I will marry you. Yes I will buy a boat with you. Yes, let’s buy a second house and oh yes, an RV too. And yes, yes, let’s drive it across the country. 

Saying yes is risky. It’s an affirmation often into the unknown, the uncharted. It can give you a bellyache and butterflies at the same time. Saying yes can humble you more than you expect. 

But saying yes has brought me some of the best experiences and people of my life. Saying yes has changed me. For the better. 

Yesterday, we walked around this city as a family and it felt incredible. I thought coming here with two kids and six bags and a double stroller and sunscreen and juice boxes and crackers would tarnish my affection for this city. It did nothing of the kind. It brought new meaning and new value to this place we love. We shared our place with two people who loved it just as much. We did new things like Fisherman’s Wharf and Ghiradelli Square, we ate fried fish (don’t tell Parker, we told him it was chicken!) and huge ice cream sundaes. We watched the trolleys race past and watched street performers. The city is the family’s city, not just ours as a couple. We have new memories now and they even richer than the ones of old.

   
    
    
    
   

“For my part, I travel not to go anywhere but to go. I travel for travel’s sake. The great affair is to move.”

— Robert Louis Stevenson

  When I was about nine, my Dad started taking me on road trips. At first, it was a part of the every-other-weekend travel variety since he and my mother separated when I was eight. The “trips” were ones that he had to take for his own work, based primarily in West Springfield, Massachusetts, a three and a half hour ride from where I grew up. My Dad thought nothing of driving back and forth to get me in one day. He loved to drive, he took pride in his safety and knowledge of the open road. And he made a pretty pleasant travel companion.

I, too, loved (and still love) to be in motion. I packed in all the Sweet Valley Twins and Fear Street books I could and would read, read, read as my Dad sped along the highway. When he stopped to get gas, I asked for a Veryfine apple juice and Hostess banana walnut mini muffins. When we ate at IHOP, I liked the steak sandwich with no cheese. He knew all the watiresses names where he ate almost every day and got a special rate at the Super Eight Motel for when he lived there during the week. He was, without a doubt, the traveling kind. If the great affair was to move, my Dad was definitely having an affair.

My Dad would chastise me for having my nose in a book and not talking to him and would perk me up with pretending to be swerving to avoid an animal or person in the road that wasn’t there. We would listen to the single of Whitney Houston singing the Star Spangled Banner (one of his favorites), Randy Travis or the Judds. Our road trips included: New Hampshire, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Washington DC and I am sure many more. When I close my eyes at night, I can still hear him making business calls in the van (on one of the first “car phones” there ever was!) or ordering a fresh cup of coffee at a diner. When I think about all that time I had with him on those trips, I count myself truly blessed. My Dad made me a traveler, helped me look at the world with a purity and grace that I treasure. Gave me that same giddy-ness to get-on-the-road-and-get-going. My traveling bug came from him.

My Dad has been with me since the moment I became an RV owner. I heard his cheers of approval, his bursting chest with pride and even caught his eyeroll over it having a Chevy engine as opposed to a Ford. I even felt his reassurance when we found ourselves on the side of the road in our first mini breakdown. I started carrying an old Polaroid of us in my wallet. My fingers have brushed it more often lately, with all of the wallet toting that travel brings. Two days ago, in a traffic jam in Yosemite National Park, the song “You Are My Sunshine” came on the radio. It took my children a couple minutes to name that tune they knew was a song I sang in my own childhood (who has ever heard that song on the radio before?), but by the time they did, my eyes were filled with tears.

I lost my Dad in 2009 and don’t think I have ever missed him as much as the past two and a half weeks. There have been so many moments, so many blinks of my eyes where I have felt him on the road with us. But, one place I did not expect to find it was in the novel Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee. I won’t bore you with my excitement over the release of this novel as an English Teacher and blah blah blah, but I will tell you, it’s basic premise is a grown woman confronting her father on something terrible she thinks he has become. It’s a coming of age novel for twenty-somethings. Like St. Elmo’s Fire as compared to the Breakfast Club. It’s poignant, it’s sweet and the adult relationship between Scout and Atticus reminds me so, so, so much of my Dad and myself.

When I was in my early twenties, I thought I had it figured out. I wrote a letter to my father outlining his transgressions and how I thought he had failed me. I looked at this action as a mature and adult-like putting my foot down. Now I see it was self-involved, petty and a bit over the top. That letter cost me from age 22-29 with my father. The last seven years of his life, we were for all intents and purposes– estranged. We saw each other only a handful of times in those seven years. By the time he died, I was a wife and a soon to be mother. I have never regretted anything more.

But sometimes when you travel, you find experiences, emotions and even some pretty spiritual moments that bring you— for lack of a better word: home. Tonight, I read Go Set a Watchman aloud in the RV (per Parker’s request) as the kids fell asleep. Even after I knew they were sleeping, I kept reading aloud as I knew I would soon finish the book and, ever a sucker for the dramatic reading, I liked how it heightened my experience with the text.

And when I reached this line, I buckled. Harper Lee’s language and ability to just yank with force on a reader’s heartstrings is what makes her a literary marvel.

“…now you, Miss, born with your own conscience, somewhere along the line fastened it like a barnacle onto your father’s. As you grew up, when you were grown, totally unknown to yourself, you confused your father with God. You never saw him as a man with a man’s heart and a man’s failings– I’ll grant you it may have been hard to see, he makes few mistakes but he makes ’em like all of us” (265).

And on this trip of discovery, adventure and personal growth, I read that passage as a glaring message of forgiveness from my Dad. As he watches me hop from state to state with my family.

Sorry, this was a sappy one, but I had to write it.