Daddy Vacation Diary Day 1: Road Trip

It doesn’t matter if it goes well or not, a road trip is always an adventure. Ever since hunter/gatherer civilizations transported their families on foot, the goal for every father leading a road trip has been the same – make good time.  It never mattered where you were going. If you gave yourself 10 hours to make a 50-mile drive, you had to make good time. That is why I get pissed off every time an 18-wheeler cuts me off to pull around a slower vehicle. That move just cost me thirty seconds.

Before the information age, making good time was done mainly by feel, but things are different now. The information age changed everything. Now, Google Maps tells you the exact time that you should arrive after you type in your destination address.  Google might as well add “Double Dog Dare” after it lists your expected arrival time. Challenge accepted. 

We were a good 60% on our way to defeating Google, but he unfairly omitted one variable – Houston.  Driving through Houston, even on a Saturday afternoon, is an absolute nightmare.  Driving time in Houston is like dog years.  Every minute on a Houston highway seems like it is seven times longer than a minute anywhere else on earth. 

Although never explicitly written down, I’m sure that Houston has a city ordinance that every highway requires an accident or stalled car every .3 miles.  If Google played fairly, it would factor this into the arrival time.  Because that cheating bastard of mobile app doesn’t play fairly we missed our goal by 37 minutes.

Occasionally, Google will send you on a detour and claim that their suggestion will save you time due to an accident or construction on your original route. I have found that taking Google’s advice adds at least 30 minutes to your drive, and I have a theory. I think Google can sense that you are on pace to beat their suggested arrival time and sends you on a detour so that Google will defeat you. Personally, I think that is cheating.

Now that I am a father, road trips have a second goal – Do Not Kill the Children. When I was a kid, we complained the entire time we were on a road trip, and our parents had every right to kill us. But in our defense, we had nothing to entertain us but our imaginations. Kids these days have no right to complain.

Far more than Jonas Salk, Louis Pasteur, or any other vaccine creator, I think the man who has done more to end childhood mortality is the first person to put a TV screen in the back seat of a minivan. It is a widely known fact that before TVs were installed in cars, 38% of children who died between the ages of 4 and 15 were killed by a parent on a road trip after asking “Are we there yet?”

We were only 30 minutes into our trip, and Ella had already asked that question three times.  By the time we arrived at our destination, she had asked that question 17 times. I couldn’t blame her. Ella loves the beach, and all she had talked about for the last three months was the Disney boat. She was about to get both in one trip. I couldn’t let parental impatience stifle the joy of a child.

If there is a benefit to having a non-verbal child, it is that Audrey never asked that question the entire trip. I guess she could’ve signed it when we weren’t looking, but she was an absolute angel on the ride. But her limit is about four hours in a car until she complains. She got a little grumpy as we sat in Houston traffic, but I couldn’t blame her because I was a lot grumpy as we sat in Houston traffic.

We did have two partners to assist us in our goal of keeping the kids entertained on the trip – Buc-ee’s and Chick-fil-A. Both performed their jobs admirably, but neither could answer Ella’s question of when we were going to get there.

We did make it to Galveston in plenty of time to check in and unwind before dinner. It didn’t matter though, because we didn’t make good time. Oh, well, there is always next year.

#disney #disneycruise