Opinion

OPINION | April Wallace: Nothing says summer like a long family vacation

Magic on highway and magic in air


Nothing says summer to me quite like a good, long lose-track-of-what-day-it-is vacation.

I blame it on my upbringing as the daughter of a school teacher (who had no summer gigs) and a postal worker so near to retirement that he could take a month of vacation with no consequences whatsoever. In those days, we would pack up the truck and head west to the wilderness for weeks at a time. No other direction would do. It was always west. And the vehicle of choice was always one with wheels.

My family, or rather my dad to be exact, was so completely against the cost of airplane tickets that I was nearly 23 years old by the time I took my first flight.

I was only one year out of college and had saved a smattering of cash just large enough for the cheapest flight to Los Angeles when I flew there by myself. I didn't even tell anyone, save for the person waiting for me on the other end, a friend I'd gotten to know in my UA days and missed dearly.

Boarding a plane for the very first time without a soul knowing what I was doing was a big, exciting thing. I was traveling on my own money. I had three entire days off in a row -- a complete miracle for a part-time communicator and freelance writer -- and I had just enough cash for a specialty latte and a copy of the new Atlantic to enjoy on my first flight. It all felt so cosmopolitan. I was headed to Hollywood, and there was no one who could stop me!

Squeezing in to the aircraft with tiny seats, I could tell I was the only one who felt this way. We lifted off, and I looked around, marveling at the miracle of technology that shot us through the air at hundreds of miles an hour. It would deliver us to the other side of the country within the amount of time it would take me to drive to my parents' home in central Arkansas. Simply amazing. My seat neighbors dozed and did their best to distract themselves. How much would you have to fly to get bored with it, I wondered.

A kind stranger switched seats with me toward the end so I could have a good view of the Grand Canyon as we sailed over. Seeing it that way restored some of the majesty of that natural wonder that I didn't feel when, as a teenager busy missing out on social opportunities, I visited it for a full week with my parents.

That's not to say that driving didn't have a magic of its own. Hours of silence driving through flatlands could be rewarded with a spectacular lightning show in the desert. A couple days' drive could drop us into the Mars-like landscape of Zion National Park. A few days more might get us to Glacier National Park in Montana or on over to Prince Albert Park in Saskatchewan, Canada. Summer after summer we saw the pages of my history, science and geography books come to life. And they all come flooding back to me as I crack open a rare orange Fanta, the taste of our summer road trips.

As my family boards for our flight, I don't regret the decision not to take long road trips with them yet. But one day soon we'll climb in and teach them to read maps and the beauty of happening on to wonderful things, both the planned ones and the unexpected.


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