Summer Vacation - Getting Ready to Travel

Packing up the kitchen sink for a travel destination may not sound like a plan, but we've done it... Remember Motor Homes - way back when it didn't cost an arm and a leg to buy a tank of gas? Packing it up and taking it with you was pretty common.

Some of us had motor homes in the backyard all year long, just waiting to take us wherever it was we desired to go. Across country - no problem. To the mountains - piece of cake. By the sea shore - snap!

But the best family vacation we ever took didn't take so long to pack.

I arrived home one night after work with an unexpected week off of work. No money in the bank, and I wasn't going to get paid for the week I was off, but the bills were current and I had three hundred dollars in my pocket. I told the kids, pack one bag, your tent, your sleeping bag and a water jug, we're off to a wonderful vacation.

I packed the cooler with juice boxes, bottles of water and the milk jug. We added a dry good box with peanut butter, jelly and bread. Then there were a few added "things" that had to go along. But the majority of what we would eat or drink or do over the next week would come right out of our car. We packed well and within about an hour, we were on the road.

No clue which way to go - we decided to let the youngest, sitting furthest back in the car, tell us which way to go on the highway. He said, "South."

We stopped for the first time about three hundred miles from home at close to midnight. There was a truck stop and coffee just really appealed to me after a long drive. We went inside and ordered drinks and chili cheese fries. Midnight in a truck stop offers a whole new meaning to camping out, but it was too late to pitch a tent.

Driving would be a real joy toy about three hours later, but I could actually imagine the glory of pitching a tent at dawn. It sounded fun, in an ethereal sense of the word. Meanwhile, there we were enjoying our breakfast of chili cheese fries - and eventually a Truck Stop Sized Cinnamon Roll - until the break of dawn, with two not quite teenagers sound asleep on the bench seat and two teenage girls wishing they were asleep, and me... Wondering what happened in the world that made me think stopping at a Truck Stop at midnight might be in any way - OKAY?