Vacation and travel plans are coming together

Vacation and travel plans are coming together

We’re just about ready to set off on our first family vacation in more than two years. Our last adventure was a break-neck road trip to Jasper, Texas, and Heavener, Okla., to visit my wife’s father and stepmother and my dad, respectively. Our son, Keegan, wasn’t quite 2 yet and he made the drive much longer than it had ever been when it was just Donna and me in the car.

It wasn’t a bad trip, just very hectic. Little ones don’t wait to go potty. They get tired of staring out the window or at a DVD player mounted on the back of mommy’s head rest. When it’s time to eat, there is no explaining to a toddler there is still another 75 miles to go before we reach the next Scottish-named internationally-known burger place with a playground.

I’ve made the drive back and forth to Heavener many times through the years since I left home, usually alone. I have gotten from my house in Elizabethtown to my dad’s front yard in just more than 10 hours if I stopped only twice for fuel and a bathroom break. Normally I’d drive just a bit faster than the speed limit, especially during the flat and boring stretch through Arkansas on Interstate 40. I’d eat sandwiches in the car and have a stack of my favorite CDs handy so that I could sing at the top of my lungs and no one would tell me to be quiet.

Then later when my wife Donna and I began to travel, we would take four or five breaks on the same trip from E’town to dad’s place. There was very little eating in the car and the speed was kept closer to the posted limits. The drive then took nearly a dozen hours, but was still respectable, considering it is 680 miles or so one way.

Hauling as much fanny as possible, she and I made a trip to her dad’s in Jasper once that took 14 hours one way. Not sure on the mileage, but it’s a long way that’s for sure. The last few hours of the drive to Jasper is on two-lane U.S. highways, which wind through several small towns. That doesn’t make for speedy travel either.

On the last major road trip Keegan, Donna and I drove to Heavener first and spent a few days. Then we drove down south about six hours and hit her dad’s place. Logistically, it was just as quick to return to Oklahoma and come home from there as to drive out of east Texas to Kentucky, so that’s what we did. The trip was something like 2,000 miles in eight days.

Now with Addison in tow, that’s not a drive I’m willing to make again soon. With a baby girl eating and filling up a diaper every few hours, something different had to happen.

The compromise we came to is for our brood to go to Heavener and have her folks come visit in my neck of the woods. It’s not too much of a drive for them and will save us a fortune in gas and time.

But there is still nearly 1,400 miles to be traveled in about six days time. The first and last days will mainly be on the road, leaving only about four to knock around and visit.

I had a brainstorm last weekend and decided to rent an RV for the drive. If Keegan needs the bathroom, he can just get up and go. If Addison fouls the air, we can change her and keep going. If I want a sandwich, I guess one could be brought to me if I asked really nicely. Since dad’s place isn’t large enough for all of us, the RV could serve as a motel room for her folks. I’m a genius!

I laughed as visions of Cousin Eddie’s RV in the movie Christmas Vacation flashed through my head. This was going to be awesome.

Then I called the RV place. Believe it or not there’s a national chain for such things. I’d made up my mind to double check prices and go ahead and book an RV for the trip. After taking down departure and return dates, size of the family, etc., the nice lady from the RV company informed me the rental would be ready for me to pick up in Nashville or some place in Ohio since there isn’t a dealership for them nearby. The RV was going to cost an extra 32 cents per mile after the first free 800 miles. I would have to pay extra to use the bathroom and kitchen areas. Running the generator costs $3 per hour and I’d have to fill up the RV with gas when I dropped it off, too.

Grand total, before all the additional stuff and prior to repeatedly filling up an RV that gets an estimated 10 miles per gallon, $1,000 was what I could expect to pay.

Suddenly being crammed into our 1998 Chevrolet Blazer is the best idea in the history of the world. Her dad can get a motel room, several in fact, for that kind of money.

Wish us luck, we’re going to need it.