Kerouac Had No Kids

Recently I found myself thinking about Boston, Lexington, & Plymouth MA; Philadelphia; Washington DC; Niagara Falls (both sides) and Dearborn MI. These were the destinations for a few of our family vacations when I was a kid. In my mind's eye, I seem to see a speeded-up slide show: flashes of images like Plymouth Rock, and steelmaking in Dearborn, and the rickety elevator at the Battle Green Inn (the first elevator I ever operated myself), and driving around DC lost -- a family tradition I'm proud to say I upheld last summer. Mostly, it leaves me wanting to say something to my parents:

What were you thinking??

OK, and "thank you", of course; I had some wonderful experiences. But having just survived my own Family Vacation Trip, my initial reaction is wonderment that anyone would do it voluntarily. I don't know whether they went places they wanted to go, or whether they planned it around our Educational Benefit. But I can say from personal experience that a vacation based around Children's Museums can be pretty tough on the parents.

I'm also amazed that they could pull off such complicated itineraries in the days before Google. If I can't do a Web search for hotels -- I'm no Patrick Henry, but Give me a suite with a separate bedroom, or give me death -- and then print off a map with turn-by-turn directions, I'd be inclined to stay home. Maybe we could put a blanket over the dining room table and go "camping".

And while I'm sure the French are still grateful to Gen. Eisenhower for bailing them out of that Nazi business, I'm kinda partial to the Eisenhower Interstate Highway System. Sure, he meant it for transporting troops & missiles and the like, but I'd hate to try a 700-mile trip in 4 days without it. For that matter, while I'm thinking of it, I'm often heard to say that if Eisenhower had had to take small children along on D-Day, we'd all be speaking German now.

The silver lining to any trip is always the resulting blog... particularly if I'm already "behind schedule" (I'm flattering myself to think that someone's missed me in my absence... you did notice it's been a couple weeks, right?) due to taxes and work and church obligations (and planning & executing a vacation). Even better, a trip really lends itself to bullet points:

• Which means I don't have to worry about making it a cohesive narrative with a unified point.
• It can just be a series of observations.
• Opossums have the most teeth of any land mammal (50).
• See how I worked in a random fact there?
• Actually, I learned that at ... a Children's Museum.

So it was 5 museums in 4 days in 2 states. Two of the museums were officially designated as Children's Museums, which mainly served to illustrate that there is no central authority that delineates a Children's Museum from a cinderblock basement scattered with secondhand "educational" toys. OK, really there is; I'm not sure whether there's any qualification process or it's just sending in box tops or something.

We also did three legitimate big-time museums that also feature Interactive Hands-On Exhibits for Kids. I have to say there was some no-doubt cool & educational stuff there, but even so it ended up being more hands-on than interactive (i.e. push all the buttons, yank all the levers, spin all the dials, run as fast as you can to the next one).

I of course found all sorts of interesting tidbits along the way... so that must mean it's time for the Bullet-Point Round!

• You have to love a state like New Hampshire, with state-sponsored liquor stores located conveniently adjacent to their interstate highways. If you must drink and drive, make sure you pay directly to the government before you kill someone.
• It's pretty complicated to nourish kids intellectually AND physically at the same time. It seems like road food always degenerates into chicken nuggets, mac & cheese, pizza, and hamburgers. We also squeezed in pancakes, omelets, and French toast. I'm pretty sure the most nutritious food we saw was the strawberries and grapes they were feeding the opossum -- although I understand that mealworms are awfully good for you too.
• On a side trip to Cambridge to visit family, we ended up at a neighborhood playground dominated by an enormous slide only accessible through an elaborate rope climbing net. I wanted to set a good example for my risk-averse son, so I clambered up myself... only to find myself clinging desperately to the precipice (not quite the message I was trying to send). He did eventually try it -- and I did get down alive. When he was balanced 10' up yelping with fear, I kept telling him, "You're fine, I've got you, just keep hanging on and going upward," but I was thinking, he's going to fall and be killed and there's nothing I can do to stop it. One of my less-favorite things about parenting: I have to keep doing things that scare me, so they don't end up scared of everything.
• You can end up in some odd places killing time with kids. After lunch one day, we visited a costume store. Then my son said, "Hey dad, that one looks just like you!" Was it Superman? A weightlifter? Some other hero-type? No, it was this guy.
• I can't emphasize this enough: Suite with separate bedroom, good; "standard" room with 2 (very) adjacent queen-size beds, bad.