DayTripping

When I was a child my family couldn't afford to take week-long vacations. Instead, my mother would take us on day trips. Most of these trips were randomly planned, usually at the last moment, but the prospect of getting out of our little town to explore new places was as exciting to us as a real vacation. In the days before seat belt laws we would take our assigned places in the big Buick. My grandmother, who almost always went with us, would sit in the back seat to supervise me and my two brothers while my oldest sister usually got to sit in the broad front seat with my mother. Depending on their age, my little sister and my second oldest sister would be scrunched in wherever there was room. My grandmother made little cloth-covered booster seats so we could see out the windows. With the picnic basket and cooler tucked into the huge trunk we would set off, stopping by the old neighborhood grocery store to stock up with sodas, gum, and other assorted goodies. Then we would hit the road, never knowing exactly what my mother had in mind for the day. Would it be a trip to a state park where we could hike the paths and explore nature, working up an appetite before spreading out the picnic fare in a shelterhouse? Or perhaps a day at an amusement park where we would thrill to the rides and laugh ourselves silly in the funhouse as we attempted to stay upright on the various tilting, turning, shaking objects? Or would our trip take on a more educational tone as we learned about the locks and dam on the Ohio river, a historic village where we could see how pioneers lived, or a telephone museum? Would we seek out covered bridges along the way? Would we go horseback riding? Or would we head to the city to visit seldom seen relatives? No matter where we went we were ready and willing to take on the day. Those trips not only broadened our horizons but they simultaneously tied us to each other for a lifetime. Perhaps with the change in the economy more families will be seeking out their own day trips, exploring the area they live in, learning and sharing along the way.