Trippin'

Barb & I returned home Monday night from a whirlwind five-day trip to South Dakota and Nebraska. It was our first visit back home since we moved to Tennessee in November. We drove 2,200 miles, saw most of our families and then dashed home in an 11 1/2-hour marathon drive on Monday. It got me thinking about the trips of my youth. But more on that later. Our planning for this trip began about a week in advance so it was quickly planned and coordinated. We left Millington about 1:15 p.m. Wednesday for our first night's stop in Springfield, MO, and immediately got off on the wrong foot (to mangle a metaphor). I hadn't researched Mapquest or our GPS beforehand, figuring our route would naturally take us northeast out of Millington on the only highway running roughly parallel to the Mississippi River and heading in our trip's general direction. But our GPS (affectionately referred to as "Dic-Dic") kept telling us to turn around. What? Head south out of town instead of north? That just didn't make sense, and so we ignored Dic-Dic and continued northeast through the small towns that lay near the Tennessee border. Finally as we got closer to Dyersburg (where we would have to turn west and cross the Mississippi River and into Missouri), Dic-Dic realized we weren't going to listen and changed to an alternate route that accommodated our new route. We found out that our out-of-the-way route had added about 150 miles to our first-day drive, and we ended up driving southwest diagonally across Missouri when our most-direct destination would have kept us going almost directly north. Ah well... We stayed overnight at the Rail Haven Best Western in Springfield. This motel was decorated in 1960s motif with a couple of 1950s-era autos out front, several nostalgic signs and two very old, square gas pumps in front of the office. Beside the front office and also inside the office were telephone booths -- another fixture from the past. We got going early the next day and made Kearney by 5 p.m., visiting Barb's Aunt Ruth, her parents Dr. and Mrs. Mary Bauer, and her brothers Bill, Char and James before leaving on Friday morning. We arranged to meet Barb's friend Heidi Swanson and her boys in Columbus on our way up to Sioux Falls, and then drove north again where we visited with Barb's daughter Breanne and family. On Saturday we met up with four of my kids at HuHot Mongolian Grill -- a favorite eating spot particularly for the younger generation. We celebrated Kaiden's birthday, and then the next day celebrated Barb's grandson Judah's birthday in Lincoln. The next day we left Omaha shortly after 7 a.m., and pulled into our parking lot in Millington by 6:30 that evening. This trip reminded me of themarathon trips my family made in my youth. Oldest brother Don was living in Connecticut, and later my sister, Pat, moved to Buffalo, NY, so we made several trips east. But I remember one in particular. It will always stand out in my mind. Don and Jane were living in Meriden, CT, and the rest of the family was going to go out to visit. That's seven of us -- in one car -- Jim's Mercury. If you want to talk about fellowship and family time, we had it. That's seven of us in a Mercury elbowing each other and falling asleep on one another's shoulders for about 1,500 miles. Of course Rog and I were pretty young back then so we didn't take up a lot of room. But for the the folks, Jim, Terry and Pat, it couldn't have been all that enjoyable. I remember we drove all night the first night, stopping somewhere in Wisconsin for gas and being "buzzed" there by a low-flying bat. Then we stopped in Milwaukee, WI with the hopes of boarding "The Milwaukee Clipper," a car/passenger ferry that sailed east across Lake Michigan, thus cutting hundreds of miles off the trip south around this Great Lake. The Clipper ran from 1941 to 1970, carrying cars and passengers between Milwaukee and Muskegon. But we were only on 'standby' status and were unable to ride the ferry to Muskegon. While I remember next to nothing about our actual visit, I do remember we were able to board the "Clipper" on our way home and sailed across Lake Michigan on its Muskegon-to-Milwaukee run. I also remember Mom used to remark about our trip in Jim's Mercury, and how we all got along well and knew we had to behave and tolerate each other in close quarters. And we did. It was one of those few truly family memories I have. Oh, we made other trips out east. One was, as I recall, right around the time of the 1972 Rapid City flood that took the lives of more than 200 people. I would've been between my junior and senior years in high school then. Another thing that I marveled at during our trips east were the restaurants that were built right over the turnpike. You could watch the traffic go beneath you as you ate lunch. I don't remember how we passed the time on that long, crowded trip. But I imagine we enjoyed the scenery and the anticipation of visiting Don and Jane in their home a long way from our home. But, as Dad said and as I felt when Barb and I got back to Millington on Monday night, "It always feels good to be back home."