Reflections on a Family Road Trip
“Jobs fill your pockets, but adventures fill your soul. ”
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We recently went on a family vacation that my husband and I have been talking about taking for several years – a family road trip out West. It felt really amazing to finally do something that until recently had just been a dream; something we would talk about but never really take the steps to plan it out and go. Something always got in the way and excuses for not taking on a 2,700 mile endeavor were all too easy to make.
The kids are too young.
The hotels are too expensive.
We should spend that time visiting grandparents instead.
Yet, this was the year. We drove for 44 hours and spent 10 days pursuing one of our dreams.
Was it perfect? No. Not even close. My daughter whined about being carried in a hiking backpack. My son got a double ear infection halfway through the trip. I got frustrated when my kids would drop their color crayons for the 1 millionth time in the car.
Did it feel good to follow through with something we’ve been dreaming about? Absolutely.
I wanted to share some of my reflections about this trip in hopes that they might be helpful whether you are taking a vacation this summer or planning one for the future.
Some reflections:
1. Kids are resilient and can do more than we give them credit for.
One of the major roadblocks (pun intended) to taking a road trip like this was the fact that we have young kids. My son is 6 and my daughter is 2; 44 hours is a long time in the car!
Despite our concerns that a road trip might be difficult with young kids, we went ahead and did it anyway; and I’m so glad that we did! There are probably thousands of blog posts written about traveling with kids, so I won’t spend too much time sharing tips here but I did want to share a few things that were essential for our family.
· Don’t get in a rush. When traveling with kids, things just take longer. Instead of stressing over how quickly you can get to your destination, embrace the journey. Sweet memories can be created in the most mundane situations (e.g., picking out treats at a gas station, making peanut butter sandwiches at a rest area, or stretching your legs at a lookout point).
· A little preparation goes a long way. How did we survive 44 hours in a car? I took advantage of my kids’ love of novelty. Before our trip, I picked up a few small toys (e.g., hot wheels & action figures) for each of them. As we drove, I would pull out a new toy every few hours. Another thing that worked really well was having a few kid-friendly books with us. Audio books are great, but I’ve also taken hard copies with us. This can buy hours of entertainment for the whole family!
If you want to travel but have been putting it off because you have young kids, I want to encourage you to embrace the chaos and get out and do it anyway! In my experience, the more we travel the better my kids get at traveling. We must give them the chance to learn how to travel. And that’s just it, when we find ourselves dealing with meltdowns and constant “Are we there yet?” questions, we must remember that our kids are learning to travel. Imagine all the amazing memories you can create with your family exploring this beautiful earth and as we learned in last week’s post, creating memories is key to slowing down time; which is what all of us mamas want, right?
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2. The world is really big and we are so small.
One evening after dinner, we drove out to the Grand Canyon to watch the sunset. The park was slowly clearing out, but I was bound and determined to see the stars come out and experience the night sky without any light pollution. I’ve always loved star gazing, but we don’t really get to see many stars from our house due to the city lights. As the sun went down and the canyon disappeared into the darkness, I felt more alone and smaller than I’ve ever felt in my life. There I was, sitting on a rock with a huge abyss in front of me and the vast night sky above me. All the people were gone; it was just me and my family gazing up at the starry sky together.
I don’t know about you, but I often find myself hustling throughout the day; checking off my to-do list without stopping to reflect on the fact that the same God who created the universe also created me and loves me deeply. It shouldn’t take going out into the remoteness of the Grand Canyon at night to make me realize the awesomeness of this fact, but sometimes we need these moments to give us perspective on life.
3. Vacations don’t have to be perfect.
They don’t even have to be big or amazing. Through a child’s eyes, it really is in the little things. I asked my daughter about her favorite part of our trip. Her response? The elevators. My son’s favorite part was swimming in the hotel pools. My favorite part was spending uninterrupted time with my family. We could have easily done all of this by going to a hotel here in Waco. If a vacation is not in the budget this year, you can still take action to create beautiful memories together.
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We spend a great deal of time at work. Like Annie Dillard once said, “How we spend our days is how we spend our lives.” I encourage you to look around your office and see what steps you can take to add simple luxuries to your workday because in the grand scheme of things, they will add up and lead to a luxurious life!