A road-trip tale

Bethany Good
Nov 7 · 2 min read

People talk about road-trips with small kids like they are unmitigated torture for hundreds of miles. When I told a friend our plan to drive from Maryland to Colorado over vacation, her tone was skeptical. “Driving 1,200 miles with a 3 and 5-year-old? Good luck,” she said, as though we were making a grave mistake. Blogs and Facebook friends seemed to be saying the same thing. Suddenly, our planned vacation was looking like a super stressful scenario.

The day before we left, my husband and I felt the weight of our impending journey. “Is it too late to get a flight?” he asked. I fully understood his hesitation.

“I’m feeling pretty anxious myself,” I said. “But the kids are really looking forward to this trip. It’ll be tough, but we can do this!” I assured him, doing my best impression of a football coach psyching up his players to take the field.

The next morning we hit the road with a mini-van full of supplies, and two young children. I was bracing myself for the worst. Surely the kids couldn’t make it out of the state without a major disaster.

When we stopped at the 9/11 memorial in Shanksville, I realized that we made it all the way through Pennsylvania without incident. The kids were too busy enjoying the journey. As we somberly walked through the memorial, I saw the opportunity to teach my children about that fateful day. It was then that I was finally able to snap myself out of my anxious mindset and see our trip in a new light. Maybe I was the one who needed to change my way of thinking? Wouldn’t it be better to let go of my worries and just learn to live in the moment?

And so I did. We watched the most beautiful sunset in Indiana. I lifted my daughter up to see the Mississippi River from the top of the Gateway Arch. I became a privacy barrier for my son to pee on the Kansas roadside. I felt the weather change from hot and humid to temperate and cool when we crossed into Colorado. We survived almost running out of gas on top of a mountain. And the best part: my kids, husband and I saw the Rocky Mountains for the first time.

Thinking back on that trip, I can’t remember the kids being whiny or grumpy. They were too busy experiencing awe-inspiring new sights for the first time. That vacation gave me more than time away, it gave me a new perspective on my family and shared experiences we will never forget.

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A life-long learner and writer for hire.

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