Some of my fondest childhood memories revolved around family camping trips, or, more specifically, the car rides on the way to those camping trips. My dad fit the traditional American father archetype – hard working, stern, a man of few words. He let his hair down a bit during family vacations, but he just couldn’t shed a few of his workaday habits. For instance, he was monomaniacal in his obsession with making good time on the road.
We would pile into the family station wagon early in the morning as mom handed us insulated travel mugs filled with hot cocoa. Mere moments after the engine turned over, dad would be complaining about traffic – whether there were traffic message boards blinking on every corner or just four other cars sharing the road. The situation was confounded further by his propensity to get lost without ever admitting it. Years later, our entire family has come to realize that the time spent in that car was precious. It really was more about the journey than the destination.