Are We There Yet

I'M A FREAK for adventures &, like a dog & their bone, my tail-wag'n worthy bone is a roadtrip. Anytime, anyplace, anyone - well almost! People who smoke inside the car or hang their bare feet out the window, no go! An open highway, windows down, singing along to 80's music, always fashionable roof rack with more luggage than necessary & a small cooler with fruit that will get soggy before hour five - doesn't get much better than that! As early as age eight I remember roadtrip'n to visit family & friends. It is funny that, what to my parents seemed a most hideous & least desirable, but oh so necessary mode of transportation for a large family of eight on a middle class income, is MY preferred method of vacation transportation. Crazier still, this was all before iPods, DS's & portable DVD players. What DID six kids do to entertain ourselves through 15+ hour drives in a seatbeltless, faux wood-paneled station wagon & later in a green (think girl scout uniform) Travelall (nicknamed the Beast) with coordinating mommade green gingham curtains? Ahhhh sweet memories of...the license plate game that left us kids with bruised arms from punching points...the reminiscent sound of yet another semi-truck horn in relay to our pulling motion - though it may have been the twentieth time that HOUR, we still loved it as if it were the first...bottomless supply of cassette tapes (& even some 8 track tapes) since it was too painful to wait while one would rewind in order to listen to it again...mutiny against my dad in order to get bathroom relief...hostile takeovers from my mom for "sleep swerve close-call" number 82...hours of Mad Libs, Go Fish & those car books with the white pen/orange cap that would magically reveal the answers after rubbing the pen over a blank space. All this while six kids yelled out "ARE WE THERE YET" at least six times per hour (that would be once per kid, minimum). Love it! All of it! Crave it! Gotta have it! The blacktop is calling to me - ROADTRIP, ROADTRIP, ROADTRIP...

Pictured: Dylan Greco