Family Friday
So far this summer, my family has gone on a camping trip and made plans to visit New York City to see my sister and extended family. Both excursions will only last the weekend, unlike our week-long stay at the beach. That trip will serve, as it has for the past several years, as our main vacation for the summer.
I think it’s about time we start planning more adventurous excursions.
Don’t get me wrong, I have no plans to give up our week along the Delaware Shore. But my boys are finally old enough where expeditions no longer have to be planned around nap schedules or strict meal times or even bed times. They also are old enough to appreciate the places to which they’re being dragged. Heck, I’m willing to finally take them to Disneyworld because they’re old enough to remember the fun they would have there.
My elder son has even expressed interest in visiting places abroad. A student at a Spanish immersion school, he has said he’d like to go to Mexico one day “because I love their food and speak their language.” He also wants a trip to Hawaii, a state his aunt has twice visited and speaks of often. And both of my boys have talked about going to Yellowstone to witness the geysers they learned about in their summer camp’s science class.
Of course, part of me starts waxing nostalgic for the vacations I took as child. Our family always took one long road trip every summer. My dad would lower the middle seat of our station wagon, line the newly-elongated luggage compartment with blankets, and then wake me and my sisters up to load our bags. Once the car was packed up, my sisters would snuggle in the back seat and resume our morning sleep as my dad would begin a drive that would seemingly last forever.
We traveled everywhere that way when I was a child. We went to amusement parks, beaches along the California coast, Yosemite and everywhere in between.
Perhaps a similar car ride might be in store for my boys, now that they’re older and their bladders can withstand longer distances between rest areas. Of course, the memories of my younger son repeatedly asking “how much longer” during our recent journey to the campgrounds in Western Maryland fill my head. If a 2.5-hour journey gets him antsy, how would he last during an all-day trip?
That’s when I think of books on CD. It might be worth exploring a Harry Potter book this way. We’re about to start the Half-Blood Prince.
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