road trip code & family dynamics

OK, so this is the great white, but obviously not a
 photo from the road trip to Gettysburg.  This
 is the great white looking quite fetching in Glacier
National Park back in 2016.  Doesn't
everything look fetching in Glacier
 National Park?  I don't have great pics
of the great white on the Gettysburg trip. 
Plus this was more my kind of road trip.

(crazy short post, but loads of retro photos)  We packed everyone's stuff in the car for Gettysburg (in case you aren't following - I am just now writing about our July trip to Gettysburg with my Dad) and got the group situated.  Pat (my brother) climbed in and asked me when Coach and I had last had our van serviced. 

Again, borrowing from Glacier trip.  I don't have
many pictures of the activity going on inside
 the great white while
 road tripping, so this one
of the kids peering out at animals
 might be more pleasant.

Really?  Does anyone find the timing of that question odd?  Like, Bro, we are backing down the driveway - schedules have been arranged.  But, now is when you ask if Coach and I are boneheaded enough to never service our van?  Are you with me people?  This was going to be a long trip.

I drove the first 5 hour stretch -without stopping.  Operative words here 'without stopping'.  Pat drove the next stretch.  Pat pulled into a rest stop like an hour and a half after he took over the wheel.  He required a bathroom.  While he went inside, I texted Coach my disbelief.  Coach and Pat went to high school together, so they go way back.  Coach did not hesitate to text Pat and tease him about his lack of manliness in not being able to 'hold it' for a road trip.  Pat admitted that he shouldn’t have eaten Mexican food the night before.  

The great white 2010, Yellowstone or bust. 
This is what the van used to look like
 during road trips back in the day.  I got
 lazy here - this is not a sunroof on our
 van - I took a pic of the photo while it
was still in the album, so you can
 see the bottom of the other photo.

On the way home (don’t worry, I will back up), moments before we pulled into Mom’s driveway to unload all the peeps, I admitted that I had needed to pee for like the last 2 plus hours.  Pat’s daughter, who is Mini’s age, was confused.  ‘What?  Why didn’t you just stop then?’  Well, because, that goes against true-road-trip code.  You don’t make everyone else suffer because you can’t hold your bladder.  Pat agreed with his daughter's sentiments, which made me question whether or not we had actually been raised in the same family.  What happened to the brother I had been stuck in the way-back of the 1976 red Chevy Impala station wagon with for all of our family trips?

Totally unrelated -
but this is the baby
 moose we saw
 in Glacier, on the
aforementioned
preferred road trip.

I suppose now that he and his wife can easily afford to travel in style, they see no use for the torture that die-hard road trippers like myself are committed to.

Mama and baby moose.

Road Trip Code:

1.  Do not stop unless absolutely necessary.

2.  Pack sufficient food so you don’t have to stop.

3.  Leave the house crazy early to avoid traffic so as to not make your already torturous road trip longer

4.  Do not drink many beverages so that you don’t have to stop until absolutely necessary.

Note this goes along with #5. 
This is a photo from
our drive out to Yellowstone in 2010.
 The kids thought I was taking a picture of them,
 when really I was focusing on the junk under the
 seats.  Crayons and dropped food everywhere!

5.  Pack board games, decks of cards, toys and coloring items that will keep your kids busy.  Little to no screen time will be tolerated.  This is the stuff family memories are made of.  

6.  Pray that you don’t encounter much road construction.

7.  I guess I should add on Pat's behalf - refrain from ingesting Mexican food the night before departing.

8.  Don't make hotel reservations for the drive out to wherever you are going - you don't want to be locked in to a destination that is either too lofty or too easy to attain.  Find a hotel when you have run out of gas - figuratively speaking, of course!

9.  Only invite along passengers who you can tolerate spending umpteen hours with.

See #9.  This is a photo of my dad in Glacier
taking loads of pictures while Coach sits
in the great white and  patiently waits.

10.  Don't bang on the restroom door at a gas station and shout at your kid to get out of there now unless you are 100% positive that it is your kid in said restroom.  (Coach can speak to the necessity of this rule.  I can only speak to the fact that this little incident when Coach overstepped provided me with HOURS of gut busting laughs while we drove home from Glacier in June of 2016)