Over spring break, we took a real quick trip to see grandma and grandpa (it was wonderful, like always). It made me think about the many road trips I have taken in my life. One thing about living in Montana: nothing is "close by." That means endless hours on the road. In a car. With a bunch of busy bodies. It sounds like the recipe for disaster, doesn't it?
But, as it turns out, less-than-perfect road trips are the ones that stick out from my childhood. My favorite road trip memory is from when I was seven or eight. We were on our way to Glacier in our Winnebago, but we never made it to our destination. Why? We hit a cow, that's why. A cow.
If only the highway would have posted this sign: we would have been spared the
agony of making ground beef with our Winnebago.
No one was hurt (other than the cow, but that's what he gets for trying to see if the grass is greener on the other side.) but the Winnebago did not fare so well. It was rebuilt and back on the road for our next mishap: the one where the holding tank backed up. But I'm not going to talk about that one because it is TMI and we don't do that around here.
Another memorable road trip (this time in a sedan) was one where someone had a case of the flu and did not warn the driver to pull over. But again, gross, so I'll skip the details and say that thankfully we were traveling by a river and were able to get cleaned up, although a sock floated away. Montana water might not be so pristine after all, huh?
As an adult, I had another mishap with an animal on the highway. This time I was taking THE boyfriend home to Montana to meet the family and he finally let me drive his beloved VW, with a ground clearance of about six inches. I turned a corner and there in the middle of the road was a deer. A dead deer, sprawled out across my lane. Using my keen reflexes, I kept the steering wheel straight and did not swerve into the other (unoccupied by either deer or car) lane and hit the dead deer like it was foot-and-a-half high speed bump. Going 65 MPH. Ka-thunk. Deer jerky anyone?
As a parent, I've had a few scary incidences. Like the time the car kept freezing up and refused to keep driving because it was 25 below zero. And then there was the time we got tired of following a snow plow (yes, that meant there was a big snow storm) and we decided to take a "short cut." We turned on the wrong dirt road and ended up deep in the forest, pushing snow with the front bumper of our minivan, not even knowing if we were on a real road, as there were no tracks in the snow. You know those stories of families getting lost in the mountains in the winter? That could have totally been us. We don't take that short-cut anymore--with the exception of the one time I thought it would be OK since it was summer, but I ended up getting a flat tire. No worries though, because I can totally change a tire while my five kids wait inside the car, right? No. It didn't go so well.
Wow, as I review my memories, I'm wondering if I might be a true redneck? Here's a picture from our last road-trip.
What do you think? Are we true rednecks?
And lastly but not leastly, I will never forget our family trip to Vegas (that sounds like an oxymoron) three years ago. That was the trip where we discovered that sweet little Bean Girl is diabetic. The number one symptom of diabetes? Frequent urination. It took us spending twenty hours in a car to realize just how often she had to go potty. (Pit stop. And drive for fifteen minutes. And pit stop. And drive for ten minutes. And pit stop ........) I'm sure she will never forget that trip either, nor will she forget the fun visit to the hospital when we got home. I will not mention why we went to Vegas since I'm already worried about the redneck image (cough NAS cough CAR. Ahem), but I will say that if you ever need someone to show you where all the good public restrooms are in Vegas, I'm your gal.
So what mishaps have you had on your road trips? Do you enjoy hitting the open road, or is it something you loathe? I actually love to go for drives, especially when the kids are sleeping or sedated with Dramamine. (Kidding, I have never done that before. Although it's tempting ...)
Let's hear all about your road trip adventures!
