Adventures in Road Trippin’

We had our first child in 2010, and then promptly flew all over the country with her for my husband’s job. We quickly became air-travel pros. We knew the whole routine:

• Stand needlessly in line to prove your infant is under two.
• Take off your shoes BEFORE you get to security.
• Pack your computer in the top of your suitcase.
• Checking car seats at the ticket counter.
• Use your stroller to haul stuff and wear the baby. But, do NOT wear your baby through the metal detector because you and your baby will get frisked and you will end up being that mom crying in the airport. (I swear my first is not metal, nor does she look suspicious despite her frequent mood changes).
• Do not be late . . . ever.

We’ve been down that road, but then we added a second child and all the seamlessness of traveling with one never transferred to traveling with two. It went more like this:

• Stand in line to prove baby’s infancy whilst wrangling toddler, carseat(s), coffee, and falling suitcases.
• Forget to pull out liquids.
• Get frisked by security.
• Wrangle crazy baby in the airplane, while dodging her 100th-plus percentile head butting you in the face.
• Attempt to control her swinging legs.
• Apologize endlessly to angry strangers while fake smiling.

From the Newark airport in late September, after a lovely week in Maine, I text our families and vowed “never again.” They laughed in my face (actually over text with a smattering of emoticons).

I text shouted back at their doubtful emoticons. “We’re done, and I’m losing my mind in this airport!!!” 

So . . . we drove to Florida the next month (no biggie, we always drive that little 12-hour jaunt). We drove to Iowa at Christmas. Also, no big deal (apart from the ice storm we barely missed, my eldest puking in the car, and my husband wrenching his guts out in the hotel). But when we actually decided to drive to California to see my husband’s brother, the world told us we were crazy. But. We did it.

Stuff I Learned

1. Texas is mountainous, y’all. Who knew? Ok, I’m sure you did, but I didn’t. The terrain from San Diego to Pecos is exactly the same. Mountains, sand, cacti, dust tornadoes, and speeding semis.

2. El Paso to Midland is crazy boring. Yes it is. That is all.

3. America is vastly unpopulated. The only thing that concerned me about traveling to California was the terrain. The long, hot desert terrain. But then I got to thinking . . . towns are just as sparse on the routes I’m used to traveling in the Midwest and Southeast. There are just trees. But we aren’t living in a Tolkien novel. Trees aren’t people. Sparse is sparse. America seems to be basically made up of long strips of interstate, dotted with Subways, Dairy Queens, and McDonalds.

4. The other half lives across the boarder. Short rant alert: There is an income disparity in this country. BUT, the other half lives across the boarder in shacks you can see from our safe and clean interstate system in Texas. This is humbling. We are a rich, rich country. End of rant.

5. America is beautiful. And I’ve missed much of it because flying is faster. There are kind people at truck stops in Arizona. There are cacti taller than I ever could have imagined. There are mountains in So Cal that look like Rock People just east of the mountains that look like Ireland.

6. You really can drive across half the country without going Jack Nicholson on everyone. You can. You can do it. Seriously.

So, how about you?

Is flying for you or just the birds? What’s your preferred mode of travel with the fam?