Road Trips

Here I am, traveling down the highway with my favorite road trip partner and our three wonderful little travelers.  We aren't quite halfway through our seven hour trip.  They are happily chattering and giggling away in the backseat and my husband has just put on some Willie Nelson. I am not one of those people who dreads a road trip. There is something comforting about the expanse of the road, good music on the radio and sitting shotgun while my husband drives.  We chat, we sing along to songs we like, I read, he drives; it's a great system. The kids handle seven hours like champs.  The last time we made this trip, no one asked for the iPad for the first six hours! Well, except for me. :-) 

As I look over at my handsome husband, I am reminded of the many, many, MANY road trips he and I have taken together. 

I remember our trip to Nashville with friends--our FIRST major road trip together. 

I remember driving his truck out to Virginia Beach to help his brother move.  On the way home he told me how impressed he was that I didn't need to stop very often.  I am pretty sure the lack of required bathroom stops is one of the reasons he married me. 

I remember driving out to South Dakota for a friend's wedding in a 1984 Chevy van. There were six of us. In the Badlands, the van stopped idling.  We didn't shut off the ignition until we got home sixteen hours later.  I thought I might die that weekend. 

I remember driving out to Washington D.C. the week after I had been home sick for 3 days and every time I coughed it sounded like a small woodland creature was being tortured.  He was still recovering from breaking his tailbone a month or so before that.  What were we thinking?!?!

I remember the first time we took our first born to visit family seven hours away. As first time parents we FILLED the back of our SUV.  We don't even take that much stuff now with THREE children.  

I remember driving 23 hours straight in our mini-van with three children and his parents behind us, caravan-style, for his brother's wedding in North Carolina.  The. Longest. Trip. Ever. 

We don't flinch at a road trip. Unless it is 23 hours.  That makes me flinch a little. We pack the car and we load up the kids and we go.  I love that he does that.  It's one of the many, many, MANY reasons I married him. :-)