Tuesday, December 12, 2006

We don't need another hero...
We don't need to know the way home...

On Monday my Christmas holiday will start. Here’s the interesting part…the husband and I are driving cross country to New Jersey for Christmas. This is tending to polarize our family and friends. Half of them say “Cooool.” And the other half? Well, generally their comments have included swear words and the suggestion that we are mad. Personally, I don’t see the big deal. “What if you hit bad weather?”, the naysayers…say. Then we pull over, attempt to wait it out and if worse comes to worse, we turn around and head back to California. We ARE traveling major roads here. There is lodging available and we fully intend to use it. There will be no short cutting onto unblazed paths. There will be no unnecessary risks taken. We intend to stay as sane and sensible as possible. That said, there is totally a “Beyond Thunderdome” sensibility behind all this. We both know that there is the possibility that “Two leave, one comes back.” I have been advised that if it throw him out of the car, to throw his bags out with him. That way it just looks like he is a hobo.

But honestly, I have taken many a car trip and I rather like them. In this case it will be nice to actually move while in a car as opposed to sitting in traffic for looong hours. I am looking forward to seeing some states that I haven’t seen before. And we think we have planned the time well enough that hey, if we really want to pull over and see the world’s largest ball of twine, we can. In any case, I have never enjoyed the holiday flying panic and in the long run, if everything goes well (because it ALWAYS does, right? RIGHT?) this shouldn’t really be any more expensive than flying once you factor in the cost of shipping of gifts, paying extra for heavy luggage, the cost of a garage for the car that we leave at the airport, the possibility of a rental car…all that stuff really adds up, and people who don’t travel at Christmas tend to forget all the mitigating factors of frustration.

Wish us luck. One of us will be back in the new year. I am hoping it’s me.

But hey, I am still here until Monday, I can still back out…

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

That sounds like a cool trip to me. I've always wanted to take a Griswald trip across the country - like from here to California. I'm just not sure I want to drive there and back. One way rentals are outrageous. A friend suggested either selling the car you drove and flying back or flying out and buying a car. Sounds too complicated for me.

Anonymous said...

i don't know which of those categories i originally fell in but i want to say good luck and coool both. hope to see you along the way (and hope you have room to haul some packages!)

and take lots of pictures

Anonymous said...

I think it's cool. But, what do I know?

Anonymous said...

hey, stop by TULSA! you have an offer for a place to stay, and a 15 mintute tour of the city, since that's all it takes to see what's here...
:-)