Traveling With Mom and Dad

I had a wonderful childhood. The oops-kid at the end of the fertility train. My parents were both 38 when I was born. They both were the babies of their big families, too, so their parents were all dead when I came along. In fact my grandmother was a Centennial baby - born in 1876! And she lived the longest of the four - till the year I was born in 1952.

Every year my parents would take a road trip. Early on we all six piled into the '56 Buick and I would lay on the back window sill while we drove from the Chicago suburbs to Yellowstone or some other National Park. Through the years, the other siblings were too busy with their lives to go along, so I would be the only one. We would drive 500 miles a day, leaving early in the morning, trying to hit every "Biggest Ball of Yarn" type place or roadside private zoo. We went to weird places that were magnetic or looked sideways or had a great tidal rise. In all those two and then later three week trips, we managed to set foot in all 48 contiguous states, Mexico (near the border), all ten provinces of Canada and the Northwest Territories.

During these trips I thought I'd die of boredom, but my parents always were there to play word games and pass the time. Every afternoon my dad would try to find an ice cream cone for us. I read books in the back seat, too - tons of them. Looking back those were wonderful memories and even though the 500 mile a day journeys seemed torturous at the time, I bonded so close with my dear mom and dad and they gave me such rich memories and a great education.