The American Family Roadtrip

It's been awhile since I've signed in. A lot going on in my life. I wrote this over my summer vacation in California. The length should make up for a couple entries.

The day started off with such promise. The sky was blue (not something Portlanders take for granted.), we had been camping amid the quiet splendor of the Redwood Forest, and it was a Monday and I was not sitting in some God awful meeting, like normal, doodling and contemplating the varius ways I could excuse myself without being noticed. "Numb Butt Mondays," we call them....

We packed the car after breakfast and headed out for Mendocino, California, to experience the beach and inhale the smells of the salty ocean air mixed with the pungent aroma of Eucyalyptus. It was to be a mere two hour drive. A stroll, really, compared to our big drive from Portland only two days prior.

I turned off Hwy 101 at Garberville for the coast. The sign read, “Fort Bragg,” and my GPS, Stella, was commanding me (because that is her nature) to “Turn right, here. Turn right here!” Maybe it's my imagination, but it seems like Stella loses her patience with me if I neglect to follow her instructions implicitly and without question. She is too assertive, hence her name. I imagine the day when she barks out, “NO, stupid. Turn right, I said. Now you've mucked it all up. Can't you follow a simple command?” Ah, but I digress...

The road less traveled is not always the wisest, dear poet. It was as twisted and unforgiving as an anaconda's. Being of a sound mind and a weak stomach, I turned around after 15 miles, frustrated and cursing my error. How stupid of me, I thought. I never took this road 'back in the day.' I always went to Willits and headed over from there. “I'm not doing this,” I said with alarming authority. But it was too late. The damage had been done. We were almost, and I mean almost off this cursed road when Marcus exclaimed, “I'm having a heart attack!”

Marcus is four. Very articulate, and very expressive. Okay, we'll use the word, dramatic.

“Mommy, I'm having a heart attack. I want the movie off.”

My wife is thinking that he's being dramatic to have his way and change the movie. But, being the good mother that she is, she checks in with him.

“What hurts dear? What's the problem?”

“My stomach.”

Now I get motion sickness as I alluded to earlier. I can't fly in small planes, ride the Tea Cups at Disneyland, or go on the ocean. In fact, I always drive on long trips because I won't be driven and get sick. No sir. So, I follow this four-year-old description of something that has never happened to him “I'm having a heart attack,” and pull over the car.

We pulled over every few minutes for awhile. He didn't throw up, but he was nautious and coughing up spit. Finally, I stood outside with him for a good fifteen minutes while his stomach settled down. We finally made it to Willits for lunch. We took a nice long lunch and allowed his stomach to return to normal. It was a wonderful lunch. A 57 dollar lunch, but a wonderful lunch, nonetheless.

Soon we packed into the car once again and took off for the coast – this time on Hwy 20 from Willits to Fort Bragg. Awesome... or so I thought....

Turns out that Hwy 20, while better than the other road, is still very curvy. Curvy like a woman, curvy, not twisty like a snake.

This road was a serious road with serious drivers. People drive fast on this road. It's actually a driving course for middle-aged wannabe Mario Andredes. It calls out Macho. Only competent men with manly driving ability are allowed. All others are cursed and forced over to the turn outs in shame. Not wanting to risk hurting my manly pride, I drove with skill. I drove over the speed limit. If the sign read 20 mph around the curves, I took them at 30, just to prove to them that I belonged. Still, however, I had 3 cars close behind me. The pressure was mounting. I couldn't pull over so soon. The shame would be too much for my fragile male ego. I kept going.

And then it happened...

“Mommy I want the movie off.”

“Marcus, we just turned this one on. Maybe sis can forward this part.”

“I feel like I'm having a heart attack again.”

There is nothing worse on a family drive that a child throwing up in the car. I suppose it's some character of the American experience. The family vacation, driving across the fruited plains and the purple mountain majesties with the kids arguing and crying and throwing up. Anyway, I wasn't about to succomb to this rite of passage. I pulled over fast.

I no sooner turned around to see how he was doing when the first milky substance dribbled out of his mouth. “Oh my God,” I exclaimed, get something, quick!”

Jen picked up a towel and kind of brought it up to his mouth. And then the dribble turned into projectile. His head spun around and his little brown eyes rolled back into his head like a sharks, and he sheetrocked the towel. Then, for some reason I'm still not sure why, Jen took away the towel. Then he threw up over the car.

“Jesus, Jen. Now look what he did!”

“Why don't you stop being critical and do something!”

“What do you want me to do!”

As we were screaming at each other, Anneliese, who has serious germ issues and a real fear of throwing up, starts screaming, “I'm scared, I'm scared, I'm scared.” Meanwhile Marcus is vomiting and Nate, our oldest, is completely oblivious and says, “Hey I wrote this poem about a bird. Do you want to hear it?”

Ah yes...one for the annals of parenthood.

It ended on a good note, though. We eventually made it to the beach (Marcus fell asleep). The kids played, the day was beautiful, and we went out to eat at a wonderful restaurant.