Unencumbered by seat belts, my brother and I roamed into each other's guarded back-seat territory and bickered.
Comment: This really makes me wanna send my kids to camp and go on a REAL vacation. Parents get to go on those too!
Comment: Joan, I had to comment on your article. We have a family of 11children and have traveled with them to Chicago and Canada and upper Maine. We traveled when there were no seatbelt laws. We traveled mostly in a Volkswagon Bus. My husband built a platform where the luggage would notmally be in the back so the little ones could take naps. So all the luggage was on top in duffel bags. Two children shared one bag. He also when there were only 6 or seven kids built a rack for the top of the bus that could hold a pop up tent. I remember one year we stopped for gas in Ohio only to find out there was no power for the pumps. So we had to wait until the next morning to get gas. My husband and two of the kids slept in the tent on top of the Bus and we missed going through tornado area. Even though the tent shook like crazy up there. For food, I would cook a roast beef and get other lunch fixings along with fresh bread,chips, cookies, drinks etc. and my husband built a table in the Van so I could make lunch as we were going along. Only had to stop for bathroom breaks. We had one daughter that got car sick. She always had to sit next to a window. I thinl the kids thought that was a ploy until she proved her point by throwing up on one trip. We had no air conditioning and the summers in the midwest seemed hotter. Enjoyed your article, It brought back many memories. The saying "when they are little, you have little problems, and when they get big, the problems are only bigger.
posted by Mom of 11 8-7-08
Comment: Hello, Joan! This comment comes a long way from sunny warm (even though it's winter here) northeast Brazil. My parents always loved travelling, specially the "real thing": car trips through our immense country. This being, I knew pretty much the entire state I live in (Alagoas) and a great deal of the northeast-southeast Brazil by the time I was 13. Some of my best childhood memories come from those crazy-endless hours inside the car, stopping on every interesting spot we could find. I still come back to those memories every now and then, when I want to remember how great this world really is, and how often we get too comfortable on our sofas and around the blocks of our neighborhood that we forget how far we can go. I plan to show my 3-year-old that there is more to the world than the city limits.
Comment: Way to go Joan. I'm sitting in Vail, CO on the last 2 days of a 2 week vacation with my family and guess what? I'm going laundry and thinking about what needs to get done before we leave (hopefully) on Saturday morning for the 2 day drive back to Chicago. Whooppee! The one thing you didn't mention is the wonderfulness of the Internet. In order to leave my job for 2 weeks I had to bring my laptop and work for 4 of them. Not so my husband who s self-employed and can leave construction jobs in limbo for 2 weeks (with the proper notice, of course.) I agree though, the best memories of my childhood were of the folks and four kids bickering in the back seat all the way from Chicago to California. I hope my kids come away with memories that good. We've been taking family vacations for 20 years now and I know I'll miss them when they're gone. Then I won't have anything to complain about.
Comment: Great article! I can just picture you wiping the kitchen counter tops now... I think we need a new, conflated name for "family vacations". I propose Fake-cations. I too have been traveling with my kids for almost 9 years now, and have learned the following lesson: the most important thing you can pack are realistic expectations. --Jamie, http://www.travelsavvymom.com
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Comment: I truly believe in the family vacation. What is this world about? Making money? No, it's about making memories. It's about living in the moment. We have 3 young children (8,5,3) and have been taking "real" vacations for 3 summers now. By real vacations, I don't mean heading to a luxury resort where they have "camps" for the kids (which is really just daycare on vacation.) We actually camp, for one thing. We sleep outside, we eat with dirty hands, and we celebrate the fact that we can't sleep because of the echoing bullfrogs all over the place. We enjoy each other's company, we talk about things that never come up at home, and we see things that could never be seen in our safe, suburban neighborhood, like the beaver we came across this year as we were canoeing across the lake. We followed him around the entire lake just to see where he was going and what he was carrying. Enjoy the time with your family. Don't wish it away because you need a break. Why did you have your children? To wish them into adulthood? Savor these times with them because one day, they'll be gone and all they'll have of childhood is memories. Don't you want those to be something they cherish, even after you are gone? I certainly do and plan on enjoying my children on as many vacations as I can.
Comment: I just returned from a 2200 mile round trip (Texas/NC/Texas) with my 4 boys. It was a visit with 45 relatives, mostly dysfunctional. And you know what, I miss them terribly. Lord, what fun we have - including the political arguments. I love hearing what my mostly grown nephews and nieces are thinking about the world. Did I finish my book? Nope. But I picked up two that different books for my stack, and passed some beloved ones on to sisters and Mom. C'mon, vacation is about vacating the normal, everyday routine. If that means you don't normally cook everyday or do laundry - then embrace it. Vacating the normal, makes us happy to re-embrace it upon returning. BTW the trip home had me vacillating between suicide and homicide. But, hey, we made it and I loved the trip. I can't wait until next year.
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