I am SO fortunate! Not only have I been able to take this trip to Italy but I have FABULOUS blogosphere friends who will relate their sordid travel tales for your enjoyment while I’m gone. Today, DCup from Politits and Unglued shares the joy of train travel with small children. A cautionary tale, even without the waffles or the tour of Graceland!

Not only do we share politics and certain physical attributes (ahem) but we’re not afraid to use ‘em! And, let me just add, I am so grateful for the honest way DCup talks about how much hard work marriage and parenting can be.

**********************************************

In 2000, my husband MathMan and I took our children on an Amtrak ride from Chicago to Memphis so that we could attend his nephew’s wedding near Batesville, Mississippi.  For some reason that I cannot imagine now, we thought it would be a swell idea to travel with three children ages 9, 4 and 21 months without a sleeper car.  We were so very wrong.

A sleepless night with restless children is bad enough. Add to that the fact that MathMan and I were in the middle of becoming separated and you have a recipe for an incredibly tense and strung out family Not-Vacation.   The nine-year-old and the four year old were able to escape the confines of the train seats to go to the observation car with their cousins, but MathMan and I were trapped with a fussy, restless toddler who was determined to defy any hoarse request from us to lie down and get some sleep.

When we climbed off the train, exhausted, hungry and in serious need of showers, we were faced with the reality that we had to wait hours before we could drive to Mississippi, check into our hotel and get ready for some family time with MathMan’s large family and the nephew’s soon to be in-laws.

We ducked into a nearby Waffle House for some breakfast.  At this point, MathMan and I were barely speaking, settling instead for talking to the children, barking out orders to them to sit still and be quiet and avoiding each other’s eyes.  We wolfed down the greasy food in silence and stared out the windows at the gray, misty morning.  The weather perfectly fit our moods.

Because nothing says dysfunctional like Elvis, we decided to go to Graceland to kill time.  We divided the kids up so that we could manage them without sounding like over-tired, cranky, warring parents.  Armed with audio tours, we went our separate ways to learn all we could about Graceland and its grounds.  You know, it really is smaller than you expect it to be.

Thankfully, the children slept all the way to our next destination, but the two biggest babies in the car (MathMan and me) were still in desperate need of naps.  We slogged through the rest of the day and made it an early night.  The next day, as the children played in another hotel room with cousins, MathMan and I had a much needed shouting match while we ironed our clothes for the wedding.  The shouting match cleared the air enough for us to slap smiles on our faces and attend the wedding.  One of the best photos of our family ever taken was taken on that day.

Oh, the irony.

We were scheduled to take the train back to Chicago with the rest of the family, but we decided to cancel our train tickets and rent a car instead.  I was to start a new job the day we were to arrive home (Monday).  MathMan and I agreed – a rare moment in those days – that it would be best to cut our visit short and sleep in our own bed, even if we went to bed angry.

We drove from Mississippi to Chicago in virtual silence. As the states rolled away under the tires of the rented Jeep Cherokee, I stared out the window and worried that this disaster of a trip would be the last one we would take as a family.  The thought made me sad because, frankly, our young family hadn’t taken many trips or vacations and I felt we were all being robbed of something.  We would never share the memories of a happy family trip.  Or worse, this trip would represent in the minds of our children, the very worst a trip can be.  True, no one threw up behind a bush at McDonalds in Birmingham, like I once did (my siblings claimed that ruined our trip to Cape Canaveral), but this tense, short trip would be the lasting memory of our family that they would carry through life.

The following summer, MathMan and I had reconciled and we had another family wedding to attend.  This time, we drove to New Jersey and stayed in a lovely suite of rooms where we had our own bedroom and the children each had their own beds.  There was no tension, no anger, no shouting match.

We still talk about that trip fondly.
— — —
A year ago (or longer) on This Journey…

Grateful: Sand Bat and Flying Monkey edition 2009
Thankfulness 2007
The Holidays begin 2006
Thank your first commenter day 2006
The New York Times: Shhh, Don’t Say ‘Poverty’ 2004

November 22nd, 2008 | Category: bloggers, friends, travel | Subscribe to comments | Leave a comment | Trackback URL