Are We There Yet?

The precise years blur, but memories of family car trips are as clear today as the windshield that first summer morning when the dad packed the car and the mom made the picnic lunch. The excitement and anticipation can rival Christmas, even the last day of school. Other car rides have real purpose. But vacation car trips are serendipitous odysseys to new places with unseen, endless possibilities that tap the imagination and curiosity.

Family car trips, like the ones unfolding across this grand land by the millions of miles these hot August days, are unique, even bonding, often indulgent, sometimes fatiguing journeys. The destinations are irrelevant. All members all together for a week or two with no conflicting schedules, discovering unfamiliar worlds with vague plans in a confined space, best friends, like it or not.

These gypsies of interstate leisure quietly assemble their own mental scrapbooks. The truck driver responding to passing youngsters’ hand signals with air-horn blasts. The kid in the Kansas car waving every time you pass. The dad’s sunburned left arm. The stuff on other vehicles’ roofs. Genuine cowboys herding. The silent immensity of real mountains up close.

Lasting lessons can be learned on such journeys--that beautiful river stones look less beautiful when removed from their watery world. Strange, unexpected things can happen--parents permitting pancakes at three weekday breakfasts in a row. No TV or desktop computer to hypnotize anyone. Cowboy hats being purchased, never to be worn again. Family dinners not cut short by outside obligations. Family members sharing stories--and actually listening. Strange things happen to parents too. Dads actually do cannonballs in motel pools. Parents dance together. Fathers catch themselves reminiscing out loud about their fathers, something the children don’t often hear. And their attention is rapt.

It’s reassuring in an anxious era when so much changes so rapidly that some things remain constant over the generations since 1919, when an Army officer named Eisenhower first suggested a national system of highways. Today’s cars are air-conditioned, and motel signs advertise Cable TV, not Hot Water. But the together part of these trips is the eternal epoxy--parents with the time to look on their children with open minds and relaxed eyes, youngsters with the annual opportunity to see their parents as human.

Chances are, when history books are written about 2001 they’ll carefully chronicle the new president, tax refunds, the economy, maybe gas prices. None will record the children’s sandals kicked off during a chairlift ride, the unattended milkshakes mooched by the equally vacationing family dogs or the naughty word uttered by fathers confronting new flat tires. But in the oral histories of our national households, we all know which tales will be best remembered and most sustaining.