Spring Break Road Trip

Returned Friday evening from a week on the road: Departed Holy Thursday for Houston. Celebrated Easter with my husband’s sister and her family and my in-laws: a cousin lovefest sweetened with plenty of chocolate. Then travelled north through the Texas bluebonnets to Dallas to give my brother’s boys a few not always welcome squeezes. From there we turned east back to Mississippi so my second son could participate in the state National Geographic Bee in Jackson. Took a break at the Vicksburg battlefield park before sneaking too many children into a not quite sleazy hotel. Followed up the Bee with a drive by Eudora Welty’s house and a quick stop at the Mississippi Natural Science Museum to see the two headed snake.

Both heads seem to smile.

Miss Welty lived in this house right across the street from Belhaven College

All in all, we logged about 22 hours in the car. While browsing my sister-in-law’s Parents magazine, the thought occurred to me that perhaps I have earned the right to write one of those articles I’ve seen in nearly every Parents magazine on how to have a good road trip with children. I’ve learned how to pack and how to entertain bored youngsters, what snacks travel well in the car, what toys do not travel well. None of these articles mention the final struggle upon arrival back home: Unpack the car, bemoan the books ruined by tromping feet in the back row of the GMC, excavate lost shoes and hair clips, toss half eaten sandwiches that have been crammed into cup holders. Then start the sorting: spoiled food from that which will hide in the fridge until spoiled, dirty and clean clothes, junk mail and the good stuff +bills. Then pour a stiff drink and review the phone messages and emails. This time, because of the Lenten fast, the only drink with legs in the house was my dear husband’s 15 yr Balvenie, a gift from his sister which I intended to preserve untouched for the duration of his deployment. But I’d just spent a week on the road with the six kids, who all were well behaved 90% of the time. It was the 10% that wore me down. Plus, I had been on good behavior myself for a week. I don’t even like Scotch, but we had no beer or wine, I was tired of overdosing on chocolate eggs, and a cup of tea requires sitting down. Either my taste buds are dying or this was really good Scotch because it didn’t make me grimace at all. Does drinking alone make me an alcoholic?



This is the second long road trip from Mississippi and back, but I’m still not sure that pulling into our driveway feels like coming home. The house still smells like someone else’s house. I don’t have many plants to welcome me back, although I did plant some lettuce that is being suffocated by falling live oak leaves. I was happy to see that the azaleas are starting to bloom – spring here has been surprisingly colorless, but now the azaleas are breathtaking.

Perhaps part of the rootlessness I feel on our return has something to do with the absence of my husband: his temporary absence makes everything about living here seem temporary. And while I am proud of myself for making this trip without major mishaps, it was a lonely drive without anyone else in the front seat. I had to do the driving, food tossing, and refereeing myself this time; no getting lost in a book while husband drives, no long conversations about the peccadilloes of various relatives or arguments over how to spend money, no one with whom to sing tunelessly along with John Denver or James Taylor. I spent most of the drive with my eyes glazed over lost in thought while the kids entertained themselves with books and movies.

They also played in dirt.

At least I saw more of the countryside than I have in awhile. I actually enjoyed driving for maybe two thirds of the 22 hours. Louisiana has beautiful water birds and swamp cypress. Texas has its broad skies with spectacular sunsets and rolling hilled ranches to rest your eyes on. The landscape seemed to alter immediately as soon as we crossed the Texas line, or maybe it was just that after the crossing every car morphed into a pick-up truck.

Hill rolling at Vicksburg

I wonder about the memories my husband and I aren’t sharing – he spent the week in a city in Afghanistan while we hung out in Texas - is there anything in these experiences that will change us essentially? Some experiences seem less affective if they aren’t shared, like pretty sunsets on a drive, or touring the battlefields at Vicksburg – they just don’t seem as memorable if you don’t have someone to talk about them with. On the other hand, my experiences this past week resembled previous vacations: spending time with family, enjoying Easter traditions, listening to the same stories and movies we listen to on most of our trips. I reminisced about our early married life in Dallas as I drove past the exit for our first apartment and had coffee at UD. Even the excellent Houston Children’s Museum and the revamped Dallas Zoo seemed familiar, though we’ve never been to either place before.  My husband will have no trouble picturing what life has been like for me.

These experiences can hardly be transformative when they mimic life as it has been. Although I should have been gaily chatting with the kids in the car, I felt a part of me growing cold as the miles ticked on, sort of a numbness of soul inappropriate for Easter. It’s almost as if even the new experiences that we’re having will have no toehold in my consciousness until my husband returns.

But my husband’s experience of living in a war zone will hardly leave him untouched. His voice sounds unchanged on the phone, but I’m sure we’ll have some recalibrating to do when he returns. He sent some photos the other day of himself in a strange land with people I don’t know, and the dissonance of the unfamiliar was jarring. Sometimes I forget that while we go about our daily routine, he is making new memories; his life is not on hold. I imagine some large part of our reunion will be spent reclaiming familiarity. A welcome process.

Then again, a part of our homecoming routine after road trips has always been spent reviewing our different impressions: Even when we’ve shared the drive and the same room on our vacations, our perceptions and evaluations have often been different. Our memories of events we attended together sometimes vary widely - largely because I tend to confuse things. I suppose that is why lifelong monogamous marriages can avoid monotony – the experiences and memories shared by two people knit together so closely can remain unique to one and fascinating to the other.