The Different Drummer
Learning To Fly
As we set sail for Alaska, the patience and kindness of total strangers helped my daughters soar to new heights and cross new frontiers.
– Tom Petty
Fresh off our wedding at Disneyland in 2008, I was ready to embark on the first adventure as a newly blended family. With Summer approaching I asked Nicole where we should go on vacation. She looked at me bewildered and replied: “Who is going to watch the kids?”
For my ex-wife and I, family vacations had been a regular occurrence. As transplanted New Yorkers it was important to us that our children maintained ties with family and old friends who still lived on the East Coast and this racked up a lot of airplane miles. Things were different for Nicole since she is a native Californian who was living just a few miles from her childhood home. A set of triplets, two of whom are on the severe end of the Autism Spectrum also meant the logistics of travel were more difficult for her.
“We’re taking them with us, “ I boldly answered.
