Day 7: What's so good about a road trip

 

As I returned to our hotel tonight from a late-evening trip to the grocery store, I was greeted in the hallway by all three of my children and their papa, exuberant and wet from the pool.

We had finally landed at our hotel for the night, after a long day of driving that spanned parts of three states and a whopping 550 miles.

Despite the long day, all three of these kiddos were jubilantly skipping through the hotel corridor in their flip-flops.

Henry shuffled as fast as his little legs could carry him, Calvin bragged about his new swimming accomplishments and Lili excitedly poked through the plastic bags I was carrying, wondering about what kind of dinner I'd brought for our hotel-room picnic.

For a moment it felt like we were home. But we aren't. We're in Tennessee, with a good 800 miles to go before we reach our destination and begin unpacking and making a home in our as-yet-unseen house.

But it was in that moment in the hotel hallway, that I realized something has happened to us on this epic road trip. We've become closer as a family.

Maybe it's because we've been belted into our seats for 8-hour days with nothing but our creativity and conversation to keep us from going crazy.

Maybe the monotony of 100-degree weather and long stretches of pavement make the people sitting in the seats next to us seem vibrant and interesting.

Maybe it's because a cross-country trip boils your days down to a string of necessary stops -- bathroom breaks, eating, stretching, filling the gas tanks, sleeping -- and you don't worry about much else.

I'm glad we decided to do the move this way, you know -- two cars, two drivers, three kids, two cats, eight states, 2,200 miles and just over a week on the road.

This trip has afforded us the ability to see where we've come from and where we're going.

So far, we've watched the landscape blend from coast to mountains, low desert to high desert, high plains to river delta, cattle ranches to corn fields and silos to steeples.

We've heard the radio stations turn from Latin language and hip-hip on the west coast, to gospel and country in the desert and plains, then to southern-fried rock, hip-hop and country in the south.

We've passed semis loaded with bushel upon bushel of sweet onions tethered in mesh.

We watched a dirt devil cross the freeway, then disappear over a farm field.

We felt a kinship with the drivers of U-Hauls and wondered what new home might await them on the other end of their summertime road trip.

Don't get me wrong, I can't wait to be done with the driving.

There's nothing I want more than to just get out of the car for good and start chipping away at the loneliness, uncertainty and excitement that shroud our new life in D.C.

I guess what I'm saying is that so far, the journey -- the getting there -- has been good for us. Perhaps even better for us than I'd imagined.

So maybe the settling in at our journey's end won't be so bad either.