Road Trip - My Travel Origin Story

I wrote this piece and submitted it to the Writer’s Digest (WD) Annual Writing Contest. I was awarded an honorable mention in the personal story/memoir category. This will be published on line in mid October - you are reading it here first. Many thanks to Noè Harsel, a brilliant writer and friend, who introduced me to WD and read through versions of this prior to submission. Enjoy the read. You may also listen to me reading Road Trip on my podcast.

No photos of this trip exist but the in the gallery I have shared some childhood photos I digitized before purging all that owned to travel full time.

She sold everything we had over the course of a few months. Well, I seem to remember we still had clothing, books, a terrarium. There were many discussions with Grandma during this time, some more heated than others, but not unusual, and I didn’t get the context (at the time). I don’t remember feeling worried. Life as I knew it kept going – school, swim practice, temple, playing in the neighborhood. For some reason, the loss of “stuff” was not alarming.

As I rounded the street corner one day, I saw a brand new, orange Volkswagen Vanagon with the pop-up top in the driveway. WHAATTT??? This was very exciting and a big step up from the old VW Bug. But why did we need a van?

In the Summer of 1973 with the new van and clearly a different point of view, Mom said,

“Girls, there is more to life than Shaker Heights Ohio and we are going to find it.”

 1973 was a simpler time – analog wrist watches, paper maps, calculators, record players and typewriters no public internet, computers or mobile phones.  The oil crisis was in full swing with gas increasing from 38 to 55 cents per gallon.

Before our trip and her marriage, Mom had her life planned. She became a teacher (1956), got married (1957), and had two children (1960 and ‘62). The teaching schedule so she could be home when we were. She scheduled our summers by expanding our classroom to include even more museum visits, sports, summer classes, volunteering and reading a book a week. 

Mom’s plan came to a halt in 1968. Just shy of a 10-year marriage, after what looked like a Princess wedding in photos, she sued for divorce at age 31. This was not a time when women left their breadwinning, but cheating, husbands. 

Mom said,

“I refuse to raise two young women in a home where I am not respected and cheated on.
You girls will learn how to support yourselves, never rely on a man to ‘take care of you’.
You can be and do anything you want.”

More discussions with Grandma, who did not want to understand Mom’s point of view. I remember it was hard for Mom to find an apartment in 1968 as a divorced woman with two girls, six and eight, along with our cat Thomas. Grandma reluctantly co-signed a lease, so we had a roof over our heads and Thomas went to a new family. We were devastated about the cat (not the change in lifestyle). Mom let us know it was her two girls or the cat – the landlord wouldn’t take children AND pets. Life as a divorced family began.

Prior to whatever Mom was planning in 1973, our family travel had included day trips to the beach at Presque Isle in Erie, Pennsylvania and airline trips twice a year to see our father for two weeks per our divorce agreement.

Slowly the dining room table filled with travel information. A big Kampgrounds of America (KOA) magazine listing every campground in the US. Camping? We had never camped anywhere, at any time. The large Rand McNally US book of maps as well as state maps for Ohio, Kentucky, Illinois and Missouri appeared, all brand new and crisply folded. I don’t think I knew the term “road trip”.

Mom’s new, short-term plan began to reveal itself, take the summer of 1973 to explore the United States. At 36, Mom was taking my 11-year-old sister and me about to enter middle school to see the USA. We would not be able to help with the driving.  I remember we complained about missing summer plans with friends. Mom would hear none of it. We had about a month before we started the trip.

As an adult looking back, I think Mom had been preparing for this road trip since 1968, if not before.

I am not sure ‘worry’ set in but maybe an anxious curiosity.

How long would we be gone?

“You’ll be back when school starts in the Fall?”

Where are we going?

“To see the USA.”

Where will we sleep?

“In the van, there are three ‘beds’.  
A hammock across the front seats,
one in the pop up roof and another when the back seats are down.”

How will we eat?

“Over a campfire, maybe an occasional restaurant.”

How do we know where we’re going?

“We don’t; we have maps.”

What if we get lost?

“As long as we have a full tank of gas, we’ll never be lost.”

We were packed and, on the road, when school ended in May. The trip took five months. We arrived back in Cleveland truant from school but feeling accomplished. My mother, the teacher, told the schools she had been home schooling us, an unheard-of education in 1973 suburbia.

While I have memories of the destinations, like they say, it was the journey I remember most.

Living with whatever we had with us, we soon learned we needed less than we thought. It is a way of life I have fully embraced whether in a permanent location or traveling.

My sister’s terrarium started the journey. When we crossed the border into New Mexico they refused any foreign plant material. It was left by the side of the road, a casualty of protecting the state’s natural ecosystem and our minimalism.

We became proficient map readers by the end of the trip. There were many wrong turns in the beginning, but we were never lost. Folding maps was an art we did not embrace much to the dismay of partners and friends on later road trips.  Today I remain a bad judge of distance and direction without Apple Maps or a body of water nearby.

After driving my own stick shift car, I realize Mom was terrible at driving a manual transmission. She rode the clutch at traffic lights and ground the gears up and down mountains. By the time we reached Montana, the clutch was stuck in first, which required a replacement in Bozeman.  Little did I know then, sitting in car repair waiting rooms would be part of my driving experience for years to come. In the early 70’s, Bozeman was a town with much of the old west still intact. So different than my suburban upbringing. Yes, there were cars, but also horses, cowboys and short three-story brick buildings lined Main Street. Mountains surrounded the city.  True to Mom’s promise, I was seeing there was a lot to learn outside of Shaker Heights.  

Before the trip, writing thank you notes after holidays and birthdays was required by Mom. I had enjoyed and embraced this skill. During our journey, I made pen pals as we travelled.  I had correspondence well into college and then we grew up and went different directions. The act of writing AND getting mail back was exciting, revealing, joyous and rewarding…it still is today. Better than email any day.

On our way back east, we drove to Theodore Roosevelt National Park. Seeing prairie dogs and buffalo roaming the plains of North Dakota was jaw dropping for this suburban, schoolgirl. We found a ranch and rode horses across the plains. We camped under the stars. I fell into a mad crush with the ranch hand who helped us – and gained a pen pal for a long time. That visit more than any other formed my appreciation for parks, open spaces, forests and the animals living there. In 2021, on a road trip to Yellowstone Park, I saw large herds of buffalo and their calves roaming the Lamar Valley. It brought me right back to our stay in North Dakota.

In New Mexico, we visited a Navajo tribe. Mom made it a life lesson we were sure to understood.  The handwork and time that went into the rugs they loomed. Every rug had an imperfection woven into it..  They were given the gift of weaving by the Gods and taught by Spiderwoman herself - an important deity to the Navajo.  To honor the Gods, Navajo weavers deliberately incorporate an imperfection. 

Mom said,

“If you do the best, you can in anything you set out to do – you will be successful.
Perfection is not the goal.”

This held true for our grades, “Did you do the best you could?”, was all she asked. And for anything we tried. Learning this lesson at 13 allowed me to move forward, try, fail, and try again. There was no anxiety about my work in school, at home or as a professional later in life.

I don’t remember life in the van. We stayed in campgrounds all over the United States. There was no power to the van, so when it got dark, we went to sleep. I do remember cooking and grilling our meals. I had no idea Mom was so adept at cooking over open flames – let alone starting a fire. For me, our day drives and nights camping were enjoyable and relaxing. We spent time planning the next days travel, deciding where to go and what to see.

Mom was my first shero. I only felt love, protection and empowerment given and received. This trip confirmed for me her ability to survive and make sure her two girls thrived.

Today, I realize this trip was one of many manic episodes Mom had in her bi-polar, schizophrenic life. Back then, mental illness and treatment were not discussed. Treatment options, let alone help, were hard to find and sometimes the cure was worse than the disease. For women, like my mom, electric shock treatment, hospitalization along with dulling drugs to keep everyone quiet were the only answers the medical community offered.

All this became clearer after the trip as I became an adult. Mom shared her father’s death was by suicide when I was two. Now I know, everyone on her side of the family has or had mental illness – including my sister, Grandma and cousins.  Aunt Sarah was an accomplished concert pianist before they escaped from Russia to the United States. She taught me piano, until her own mental illness took her away. I remember as a teen listening to quiet discussions about treatment options including Lithium, electric shock, surgery (lobotomy) and committing her to a hospital. Everyone was trying to keep her at home and that brilliant head of hers full of piano concertos intact. Who knows how many of these discussions happened when Mom was growing up.

How Mom managed her life and ours was a testament to her fortitude and commitment to raising two self sufficient women. She succeeded in that and many other personal and professional goals.  I remember her as fearless. I think she knew she was mentally ill and had nowhere to turn for help – her family, husband and community were not there for her.

This road trip was the epitome of Mom doing what she felt was best for our family and probably her own (literal) sanity. My life, decisions, mistakes and success are because of how Mom raised me. Unknowingly, this trip imprinted deep in my brain the ability to do anything, go anywhere, get out of my comfort zone, explore and see the world from another’s point of view – including my mom’s.

For the past two years, I have lived as a solo nomad, traveling full time, without a permanent place to call home. Everything I own, love or need is with me, and it isn’t much, fitting into a checked bag and carryon. I figure stuff out, make mistakes, work a limited budget, leveraging low cost and free opportunities. I have lived by John Burroughs’ quote for a long time,  

“Leap, and the net will appear”.

 I am fearless thanks to Mom.