Family Traditions
Vacations
When the children were little, we took a trip every year. Sometimes in summer, but often in fall when crowds were less of a problem and the children were not yet in school. Every year was an adventure, and as the kids grew older, we included them in planning the trips. Often, we went camping.
Once we took a spur of the moment, two-week trip to Reno, Nevada, to where my husband’s brother and his family had moved. They had been to visit us in Michigan and asked when our vacation was. We told them we actually had three weeks beginning that next week and only had a camping trip planned for the last week. They asked us to come visit in Reno but to give them a few days head start. So, two days after they left, we packed up the van and followed them to Nevada. We only had one rule for the car: No asking “Are we there yet?” until after lunch on the third day. Every day, we were on the road for fourteen hours. The first night, we stayed in Council Bluffs, Iowa. The next night we were in Cheyenne, Wyoming and by the third, we had arrived in Reno.
Along the way, we had lunch at Boot Hill in Ogalala, Nebraska, saw the Great Salt Lake in Utah and played on the Salt Flats there, too. We sang our heads off on the way there, with the kids blasting Ace of Base’s debut album. We also listened to the audio book of The Lord of the Rings trilogy. On the way home, we saw geysers in Wyoming.
Another summer we packed up the van with our camping supplies, drove from Detroit to Kingsville, Ontario, Canada. There we drove onto the ferry, MV Jiimaan, for the one-and-a-half-hour cruise to Pelee Island. The island is very rural with no fast food or big stores. There is a small general store and many bed-and-breakfast inns. There are also a number of good restaurants, an excellent bakery and lots of roads to ride on. The glacier-carved island is home to many fossils too. We did lots of swimming and beach time, bike riding, and exploring the lighthouse and winery ruins.
One of our most memorable trips, a hellish experience, was when our daughter was one-and-a-half-years old, and our son was four. I had to pick up a food delivery from the food bank in Pontiac, MI and deliver it back to our church’s pantry. I had both children with me and when I was putting them in the car at the food bank, I accidentally crushed my son’s hand in the sliding van door. I hightailed it to St. Joe’s hospital in Pontiac and called my husband in a panic. It had been a very stress-filled summer and a trip to Sea World in Sandusky, OH seemed like a perfect way to unwind. This was not a very auspicious beginning to the trip, but more of an omen of things to come.
His hand was x-rayed and fortunately the doctor did not find any breaks. He wrapped the hand in cotton and gauze and told us to keep an ice pack on it. We finally got home, and after I delivered to the food to the church, we loaded up the car, planning to stop at McDonalds in Toledo, Ohio for supper. Once back on the road after our son had his requisite McNuggets’ meal, our daughter quickly fell asleep.
We pulled into our motel around 10 p.m. Our son went right to sleep, but our daughter had slept several hours and was ready to play. We placed her in the playpen we had brought along, and she sang and called to us for hours. We finally put a blanket over the top of the playpen, and she fell asleep around 2 a.m.
The next day we, my husband and I were both sleep-deprived because our son had woken at his usual 6 a.m. We headed to Sea World. Most of the concessions were closed as colleges and universities had reopened the week before and the attraction lost the main part of its staff. It was a blistering hot day and flies and bees hung around the many trash cans along the way. We got to hold a starfish at the tide pool display, and also got splashed by Shamu. The whale was not to interested in doing his routine as the park had just obtained two dolphins who were in an adjoining pool. Shamu wanted to get to know his new pals. All in all, the day was mostly filled with disappointment. On our way out of the park, several sweat bees flew up my pant legs and began stinging me. These bees are tiny and can sting multiple times. Fortunately, First Aid was right at the exits. I headed in and the nurse had me take my slacks off. Then we both stomped on the bees. She applied some water and meat tenderizer to bandages and put one on each of the sting spots. Instant relief.
Our annual family trips provided us with education and beautiful memories. And even though each trip was not 100% fun, we made the most of them because we were all together and enjoying life and each other.
