Daily Droppings: “are we there yet?”

Special thanks to Sandra from What Sandra Thinks who created a series of daily prompts for the month of February which are the source of inspiration for this series.

This is the last post of this series. What’s up for March? I don’t know. Let’s find out together.


The prompt: “are we there yet?”


Road Trip!

As I saw the prompt for today, I started to get excited. I’ve had some awesome road trips in my life and I started rummaging through my memories and couldn’t help smiling. So many memories, in fact, that there are way too many for a single post. So I’ve decided to make a list of trips that I will tackle in a future series (with a more road warrior appropriate title). I’ll provide a little color commentary here as a warm up. So a non-exhaustive list…

America, the Beautiful (Summer ’95) – I was a fresh college graduate with a free summer before starting work beginning to pay back all my student loans. My new job would take me overseas but I’d yet to see much of my own country. So when I had to make the choice on how to get from NY to Portland, Oregon for day one, I decided to hit the road. It was a zig-zagging doozie of a drive. Over 10,000 miles in six weeks or so. Despite being a pretty naïve kid (who had no idea just how naïve I really was), this was one street-smart decision. Key Characters: Monty, Zoe (just a friend without a drivers license), and The Tank. The Tank is a whole story unto itself. 

Trip to Anywhere (Summer ’08) – I think this is my ‘coolest dad ever’ moment (alas the coolness didn’t last, but hey, I’ll take credit where I can). I’ll have do some additional research to confirm the year, but I think it was ’08. We had a long weekend to burn and could go anywhere. But rather then plan it out, I assigned the kids the navigator role and put them in charge. I just asked them to give me an initial direction to get started (they chose North) and then they used an I-Pad to find interesting places to see and redirect me as we went. We had an absolute ball! Key Characters: Monty, Ellie (daughter, 11), Tommy (son, 6), and The Flash.

Thrill Ride to Hell (Summer ’10) – This was my attempt to recreate the magic of the “Trip to Anywhere (Summer ’08). In that aspect I failed miserably, but it wasn’t a total loss. The destination was set (Orlando, FL) but I gave the kid’s control over the itinerary on the way down and we ended up in quite a few amusement parks and had our fair share of laughs. It was the drive home that almost ended me. We’d met up with my wife and her parents in Florida (they had flown down to meet us) and we all drove back together. It was a very, very, long drive. Key Characters for Part I: Monty, Ellie (daughter, 13), Zoe (niece, 11), Tommy (son, 8), and The Bus. Additional Characters for Part II: Monty’s Wife, Grandpa, Grandma.

There were others and I’ll add to this list in the future. For now, drive safely.


Be well,

Monty

2 Comments

  1. Oooh, I want to hear the story about the “Tank” soon.

    Liked by 1 person

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