Women of the Road Part I


It’s already the end of the third day of the Girls Road Trip, and we are still alive and kicking. Time to report! I am visiting Colorado briefly, to deliver Allison to my sister-in-law for a couple of weeks, and then I’m taking Natalie and three of her close friends to New Mexico.
Tuesday morning we departed only half an hour past schedule, with a car packed out to the gills. I will own that it was because of me that we left late, and even so I forgot the sunscreen, the plastic silverware and my phone charger. I will further own that the extra baggage was not due to teenage-girl overpacking; I had the great idea of planning out the meals for two weeks, and then packing all the food supplies for those meals. Seemed like a good idea, until the time came to put it all in the car. Somehow I got almost everything in.

Problem was, we still had to pick up the third friend! She was at a cottage on Lake Michigan near Indiana, so we were meeting her and her parents at a highway exit. In the pouring rain. And guess what, she had stuff too. Go figure.

After some quick re-packing, we squeezed her and her stuff into the car and headed off down the road.

The rain kept going through the Chicago area, which is a bummer. Driving the truck-packed, construction-sabotaged road around the east and south side of Chicago freaks me out enough, without having a good rain coming down on top of it. I love Chicago, but not that driving!

Illinois and Iowa slowly passed us by, with lunch at a rest area. Once again, the packing situation became challenging. The food boxes only fit in the van in the bottom of the pile, otherwise the back door won’t close. And so I pretty much ended up taking all of the luggage out of the van to get at the lunch supplies, twice in two days. But hey, we made it with all our stuff.

Somewhere in Iowa, my vanload watched Back to the Future on my computer. Do you, friends of my generation, realize that Doc went to visit the far-away future--in 2015?! And here I am, also 30 years older, with a bunch of girls the age I was back in 1985. And this vehicle is no DeLorean, just a Honda Odyssey.

I learned something valuable during this time. Allison is a great navigator. She can find whatever I need on the atlas map, she can work with Google maps and Apple maps with ease, and she can consult all three and distill them into the information that I need. This makes her one of two people in our family who can do that well. I am not one of them.

Halfway to Colorado we stayed overnight in Lincoln, Nebraska, at Chez Dahm, a secret bed-and-breakfast that is only open to relatives (however distant, like me) who are pushy enough to beg to stay there on our cross-country travels. Chez Dahm is a homey, comfortable place that serves a great dinner and breakfast, and even managed to separate this adult driver from the pack of teens with me, so I could sleep unperturbed. Which, after 11 hours of driving, was quite a wonderful thing.

On Wednesday we got back in the car to finish the drive to Estes Park, Colorado. I realized the night before that I had planned more time for that drive than necessary, so I immediately decided we could leave at 9 instead of 8, making some happy passengers. Then we frittered away some time at a rather long detour to the Grand Island Best Buy to find a new, working cable that connects my phone to my car stereo, thereby keeping me awake as I drive long distances.

And then there was the rest area stop for lunch, where everyone took some time to stretch their legs. When we were about ready to get back in the car, we got distracted by a rather nice-looking young man coming out of his car to walk his pet tortoise. It was an African desert tortoise, and certain teenagers I know circled around it in awe of both the tortoise and its owner’s fabulous hair.

Finally we got back to the car and got on the way to Colorado again. We met up with more rain when we moved into Colorado, and it stopped and started throughout the state. Julie, my sister-in-law, had mentioned that the weather had been unusually wet, cool and cloudy, and it was predicted to stay that way throughout the week. We were beginning to come to terms with the fact that we were going to meet up in a gorgeous place in a foggy haze that would hide all the beauty.

Julie welcomed us with dinner at the ready. We had rented a cabin together at Valhalla Resort, a collection of rental places that Brian and I have stayed at a couple of times before. They have the perfect combination of nice-enough, spacious homes, and not-perfect furnishings that make you feel like you can’t do too much damage. That’s kind of my favorite when traveling with a larger group. It’s also very near Rocky Mountain National Park, and it’s a quiet area. After eating, my five passengers and Julie’s kids lounged in the hot tub for a long, long time, in spite of the rain, which was described as feeling like refreshing “cold little needles.” 

When morning rolled around, we were surprised to see some sunshine. We managed to haul everyone out of bed and get a decent start on the day. We spent about 4 hours hiking around the Bear Lake/Dream Lake/Emerald Lake area, and it was gorgeous. Perfect. When we were tired and ready for something different, the older ones went with Julie and me to see the Stanley Hotel, an older, lovely hotel that was the setting for the classic Stanley Kubrick film, The Shining. It’s a pretty place that still offers beautiful lodging to customers, but it definitely still lays claim to its movie fame. Apparently though, it really looks nothing like the hotel in the movie, which I find a bit confusing. It started pouring rain again while we were in there, so again timing was perfect.
It's very different traveling more as the chaperone of a group of friends than traveling as the mom of a nuclear family. I'm more of a facilitator and less at the center of the action. That's okay, but it's different. Yet I'm still called on for my magical mom finding skills. This evening I found an iPod, a vital part to a board game, and somehow my presence made it possible for Allison to find her toothbrush. My streak remains unbroken.
Back to Estes Park. A little fudge and taffy shopping later, and we are once again well-fed and relaxing at the cabin. Tomorrow morning it all starts again as we pack the car once more and head on out to Taos, New Mexico. Might be a tad easier to fit everyone/everything in now that Allison and her gear will shift into Julie’s car. But who will navigate now? How do I know I won’t end up in North Dakota instead of New Mexico? I’ll let you know how (and where) it all turns out. 
 
Much better lunch spot than a rest area.
 
 
 
 
 
 

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