confessions of a road rat

I've been tearing up the roads the past six weeks. On the one hand, I love to see family and friends, discovering new places, even new countries.

Oddly, something is wired in me that makes travel a love-hate mixed bag. No matter my excitment level over a trip, a little sense a little dread creeps in. Like a voice telling me, "you don't really want to go, do you?!"

Maybe the dread can be traced to childhood as I sprawled in the back of our station wagon during cross-country trips. Oh, siblings love that. They'd whine, "Barbara's been in the back for hours!" I didn't care about being fair: my tummy always leaned to the queasy side. Or the first time I ever flew, on a prop plane at age seven and got violently sick to my stomach.

Travel as an adult moved into a new realm. Four kids on a road trip resembled a military invasion: games, books, snacks, bottles, diapers, favorite blankets and stuffed animals, pillows, and all the luggage. And don't forget the mayonnaise jar: a must for little boys small of bladder! It could hardly be called a vacation.

Well. Things have now vastly improved. No stuffed animals or mayonnaise jars! Road trips these days have morphed into opportunities to reconnect with my travel companions. A complicated travel plan came into play in December and our son David ended up riding to Ohio with us from North Carolina for Christmas. I'm not sure a 26-year-old would choose road-tripping with the 'rents, but I found it a sweet gift of time together.

Just last month, I road-tripped with my daughter Katie, almost 20, to North Carolina. A real power-trip, completed in under 72 hours. What we won't do for the newest member of the family, all 10 pounds of her!

Family road trip, summer 1965?

photographer: me