Public schools here in Robeson County start back up on August 26th, which means summer vacation isn’t quite over yet. If you head out now, you can take a quick trip to the beach, the mountains, or anywhere in between.
All of my school-age children are now living “on their own two feet,” which means we have to pay their bills less often.
And in our 30-plus years of marriage, my wife and I have taken a fair number of road trips in all kinds of weather and in all kinds of vehicles. Since we both grew up in the West, most of our trips took us over the Rocky Mountains, through the Nevada desert, or across the plains of Kansas, South Dakota, and/or Wyoming.
During this time I have developed several systems to ensure a safe arrival.
The first is what I like to call “The Three Ds of Long-Distance Driving: Ding Dongs, Doritos, and Dr. Pepper.” These three staples will last you—at most—a 15-hour drive through the high plains of Nevada and over the Blue Mountains of Oregon and Washington. Any longer and you’ll have to stop at a Taco Bell to get real food.
Suesan and I got married during our senior year of college, which meant we made several trips home to Seattle in her very sporty Toyota Corolla. We left around sunset and drove through the night to catch the sunrise over the Columbia River Gorge.
OK, the plan was to leave at sunset so we wouldn’t have to drive through the deserts of Utah, Nevada and Oregon in daylight, but that inevitably meant navigating snow-covered roads through the Blue Mountains in a pseudo-sports car with rear-wheel drive.
On one of these trips, I was trying to sleep off my Doritos and Dr. Pepper hangover. When I woke up, the car was spinning in circles in the middle of the highway. Suesan pulled out of the skid like a champ and brought us safely to a stop in a snow bank on the side of the road, just past the bridge over the icy depths of the Grande Ronde River.
A few years and four kids later, we found ourselves in a Dodge Ram van, this time on a trip to the Grand Canyon and then on to Mesa, Arizona.
We were approaching Flagstaff when we passed a guy pushing his broken cross-country touring bike along the side of the road – in the middle of nowhere.
“I’ll quit,” I said.
The angry look on my wife’s face told me she didn’t agree with my decision, but we were driving through the Navajo Indian Reservation in a 15-year-old Dodge van full of kids and camping gear and we needed the karma.
I strapped his bike to the roof of the van and off we went.
As our children grew, so did our travel vehicles. Van number two was a full-size Chevy conversion that easily accommodated our three sons, all over 6′ tall, and our petite daughter, 5’8″.
This van, which also towed a caravan to many, many destinations, made traveling much more comfortable than the old Toyota Corolla, and it also had a much larger cooler. Bigger cooler, more Dr. Pepper and more Ding Dongs
Since we are mostly alone now, my wife and I have traded in our huge cars for much more fuel-efficient models. Her small SUV and my motorcycle get us where we need to go – mostly local trips that don’t require Doritos, Dr. Pepper or Ding Dongs.
But with the holidays just around the corner and our kids scattered across the country, I’m sure we’ll be on the road again soon.
Has anyone ever been to Deadwood, North Carolina?
David Kennard is editor-in-chief of the Robesonian. You can reach him at (email protected).
