This month, my husband and I are planning to take our son, Hudson, on a weekend trip to Wenham, Mass. to celebrate a relative’s birthday. It will be the first new state our little guy will visit. His in-utero trip to Vermont doesn’t count. It will most certainly be his longest car ride to date.
We already know we can handle a sojourn to Syracuse or a quick trip to Saratoga. But can we handle three hours and 20 minutes on the impressively dreary Mass Pike, plus the breaks we’ll undoubtedly have to take for feedings and changings?
Ugh, this is going to be an undertaking. I can’t imagine the sheer volume of baby supplies we’ll have to pack. And this trip is just the beginning.
Next spring we hope to take Hudson out to Portland, Or. to visit with his aunt and uncle. There are exactly 2,901 miles between our door and theirs. That’s 42 hours—if we drive straight through, which of course we won’t. What’s a road trip if you can’t stop and take in some local color or get caught in a few tourist traps to snap some pictures?
Alan, my husband, tasked me with planning the bones of the trip, but he may as well have just asked Hudson. No matter how well I plot out the finer points of our travels, you know that we’re going to wind up—at least once—at some backwater convenience store, paying inflated prices for bottles, diapers or goldfish crackers, with which we will hopefully quell an oncoming meltdown. Those are the moments that you don’t need a photo to remember. Those are the moments that make a vacation really gel together into a family experience, an entity superior than the simple act of traveling from point to point.
I suppose this upcoming trip to Massachusetts will be our family’s travel-training wheels, a time we can learn from and refer to when we make our cross country journey. I know Hudson will be an amazing copilot, one who will help us savor every mile and find joy in the nuances of unfamiliar towns, who will remind us to be glad in our hearts for each other as we settle into strange beds.
Kelly Gallagher is a first-time mother living in Scotia. She’s excited to share her new adventures with her son, Hudson, with readers
