Finally it happened, the twice delayed road trip with my children, re-planed and expanded better than ever!
First day to the panhandle of Oklahoma. This year it looked greener than I’ve ever seen it due to an unusually wet year.
Our plan was to cruise the back highways through the panhandle and cross over to New Mexico to see Capulin Volcano National Park. My son saw it when he was five years old and his little sister was all of three weeks old carried around the rim of the ancient cinder cone in a sling by her mother.
My son is by now heartily sick of the story of that first trip, but it’s still a fave with his little sister. How we made the decision on the fly to drive from Black Mesa to see the volcano – and how we made the mistake of telling him what we were going to see.
So for two-and-a-half hours we listened to, “Are we there yet? Is that the volcano?”
“No! It’s two hours. Now be quiet!”
“OK… Is THAT the volcano?”
As we approached the volcano we began to fear he’d be terribly disappointed it wasn’t spewing fire.
No worries, he loved it. Just as nine years later his sister loved it, scampering up the path around the rim as Daddy and Big Brother labored to climb breathing the air available at 8,200 feet.
From Capulin to Colorado to have lunch with a friend who’ll be important in their lives in time to come. From Colorado to Wyoming to bathe in the hot spring pools of Thermopolis, a perennial favorite of ours from when we lived in Wyoming.
After picking up a tinge of pink because of course we’d forgotten that sunlight in high altitudes reflected off water equals burn, we went on to Devil’s Tower, which I’d visited once years before. We took a mile hike around the base and marveled at the climbers we could barely see high above us.
From Devil’s Tower to Deadwood, South Dakota. Took daughter for a walk downtown while my son settled a quarrel on an online gamer group. And how odd is it that he can pursue personal relationships with a group of people, some old friends and some he’s never met in person, while traveling thousands of miles around the country?
Took Little Bit to a sandwich place in an old gas station that also features a glass blowing studio.
“I like Deadwood,” she announced after looking around.
Fetched son, showed the kids the saloon where Wild Bill Hickock was murdered. Kids agreed this was major cool.
A kindly local directed us to Miss Kitty’s for pizza. Kids greatly amused aged Daddy misheard “Poor House Pizza.”
“You named a pizza for a bordello?” I said.
“No, POOR house.”
“Well it is Deadwood,” I said defensively.
Made the hand-off to their mother next day and left the two old Deadwood hands to show her around.
I love traveling. Maybe it’s in the blood. Family genealogies show no generations have been buried in the place they were born for centuries now.
Or maybe I picked up the wanderlust as a Navy brat. I’d made two Atlantic crossings by the time I entered first grade.
I’ve traveled all over Eastern Europe by train, and long stretches of the Arabian Peninsula by car.
But best of all I love to travel in my country by car, especially the Midwest and West. I love to take the old US Highways rather than the Interstates. I love to take my kids to eat in local restaurants where the food is best and the people always ready to chat.
I love to take them to places we’re familiar with, and new places we’ll become familiar with.
I have not been able to provide a lot of stability for my children in many ways. They live in a rental house with an eccentric single father. We’ve moved a lot, and I fear not for the last time. Their closest relatives are far away and hard to visit.
But I can do this for them. I can take them around the vast spaces of this big lucky country of ours, visiting favorite places and discovering new ones. Meeting people with skills and stories.
This is how I tell my children however far they roam and wherever they live, “This is your country, here you will always be home.”