I don’t need many reminders that this nation of ours is brimming with grandeur and sweeping vistas, but a summer road trip from the northern Rockies to three of the five Great Lakes in the upper Midwest is a tangible reminder that experiencing the geographic diversity of America is a worthy endeavor. Even if that means driving thousands of miles crammed in a van, car seats sticky with snacks, and the old refrain muttered and moaned by children: “Are we there yet?”
Those words referred to a lot of different destinations this summer. There were family weddings to attend and childhood homes to drive by. I treated my family to the narration of my life as a kid, first the home where I was brought home from the hospital in the winter of 1982 when snow so deep the neighbor used his tractor to plow the road so my parents could safely pass. I marveled at how much the small town where I was raised has changed, its main street filled with boutique shops and cafes.
When I was a kid, I suffered through family road trips. I remember when my parents showed me their childhood homes, or, even worse, made us stop and get out of a car to learn about the local history. As much I don’t want to admit this, I am very much like my parents.
Whereas my dad was limited by tape and film, I can’t be stopped with my smartphone, taking endless pictures of my kids, clothes stained with ice cream drips, begging them to just hold still and smile.
The devices to record memories have changed, but a parent’s quest to make a memorable and mostly happy family vacation hasn’t. And like my father, I can’t resist taking the backroads to show off where I went trick-or-treating as a kid, or where my friends lived and explain how I had the earliest curfew of all of them. There is this unquenchable impulse to not only reconnect with your own childhood but also illustrate who you were to your family long before they knew you. I should also mention that a trip like this, two months on the road, also requires an incredibly patient spouse who injects the long days on the roads with some common sense. Just as roads need guardrails, so do I when I’m traveling through the highlights of nostalgia.
I’m not sure how the sky knows at the state line between North Dakota and Montana to get big, but it surely does expand and bloom and it’s a sight for sore eyes. There is no place like home.
Maggie Doherty is a writer and book reviewer who lives in Kalispell with her family.