I’ve been taking road trips with my littles for many years now. I’ve been writing about it too! You can actually read some tips for road tripping with kids HERE that I wrote back in 2017. But I want to talk a little more about the joy and challenges of this particular adventure since last month we took the longest road trip of our parenting years-

We went straight up the country from Phoenix to Glacier National Park. While there were moments of pure fun thrown into the destination itself, the road trip and large patches of the park itself and the planning it took to get there definitely falls under “type 2 fun.” If you haven’t heard of type 2 fun then… you probably never had someone try to console you about running a marathon by telling you it is this type of fun. Using that example, let me explain- type 2 fun is something that might absolutely suck when it is happening (ie your legs cramping up at mile 20-ish with 6 miles and 2 bridges to go and questioning all your life decisions) but was actually pretty fun in retrospect (Look how many people got clean water! Look at that medal! I am so proud of myself! Quick, someone talk me out of doing another one because it is starting to sound like a good idea…)

It took a lot of type 2 fun on family hikes to get us to find type 1 fun on hikes. We STILL talk about the hike where my husband ended up carrying 3 children at once while I dealt with a small panic attack over a very painful bee sting. “We’ll laugh about this some day” proves true for a lot of type 2 fun- I will admit this includes lots of parenting moments. For every dance party and bubble blowing photo shoot, there are really hard, unenjoyable things in the moment that end up being fun in retrospect. And that’s linked to joy because I think the more sustainable, deep seated nature of joy might be found more in this type of fun than the type 1 eat your favorite desert and pet a stranger’s puppy when you need a pick me up type of fun.

So… with that explained let us talk about road trips… both the specific one we took this summer and how that has been echoed from trips in the past…
*Roadtrips allow for a flexibility that plane rides often do not- there was joy in that flexibility this trip. While I took comfort in knowing which hotels we had booked each night along the way (and people who are less type A than me could certainly rock a road trip without even booking those in advance!) We changed our plans with some hikes and other stops we thought we might make. For example, instead of spending the day in Salt Lake City proper, we decided to head to a state park and let the kids run around outside and be as loud as they wanted. It led to us being totally surprised when a Bison sauntered right past our car and with all the deer we saw along the way. The kids were obsessed. On the way back through Utah we had planned a very specific hike that ended up being flooded/rained out and so we needed a new plan last minute. Luckily, someone I knew from Grad School had worked at the Utah Shakespeare Festival last year and had excellent advice on where we could fin an easy family friendly hike with stunning views.  Road trips allow opportunity for surprises whereas in my personal experience with air travel… surprises usually just mean flight delays and being trapped in an airport…

*Road trips provide uninterrupted time for learning something new about the people you know best in the world. Something about long car rides get you asking random questions that just don’t come up on the day to day after school check in or the date night catch up. We got to learn thoughts from the kids I don’t think we ever would have. Hubby and I actually thought we’d catch up more but our kids didn’t fall asleep this road trip like they have every road trip in the past! In fact, I think I slept in the car more than they did… (but to be fair they slept a lot more than me when we weren’t in the car…)

*It feels so good when it stops… the simple joy of finally stretching your legs after a long stretch in the car is not to be overlooked. Additionally, all the girls in our family (including me) are inclined to road sickness… so in some ways it seems crazy we ever opt for road trips- but we also have sensitive ears which means that air travel is not just uncomfortable but straight up painful with the pressure changes… unfortunately when you are driving up and down mountains the same thing happens (looking at you Utah! you are so beautiful but hurt our inner ears so much)  and my youngest is not yet old enough to understand how to pop her ears or to chew gum to mitigate the pain. This led to a lot of screaming during a few sections of the trip and so when the altitude leveled out and the screaming would stop… it felt like we were opening our ears to what a blessing the normal chaotic noise level of three kids in a car is as opposed to that level plus screams… This may sound like a truly weird source of joy, but it is actually very similar to how I feel after long runs. It just feels so good when it stops…

*The destination is worth it. Road trips are just one more way we are teaching our kids that patience pays off and that we can do hard things- especially when they come with a wonderful reward on the other side. Making it to Glacier National Park was something I’d been planning over a year and had on my bucket list for many years before that, but the kids weren’t completely sure of what I was so excited about until they got there. It was definitely the highlight of their summer- we saw so much wildlife and the kids were all feeling like we’d traveled to a whole new world when they got to touch snow in the middle of the summer. My middle kid even waded through glacier water with me to get to a gorgeous waterfall view and skip rainbow colored stones. Even if she some day only has memories through the pictures we took, that is something I am going to remember forever. My oldest kid even journaled about the experience and he usually reserves any non-forced writing for fictional pursuits. In some ways, the long journey there made the destination even more sweet than a one day plane ride would have, and the long journey back gave us time to process what we had experienced before re-entry into everyday life and all the routines and chores that waited back home.

Did your summer include any type 2 fun? Did you take family road trips? Any favorite memories or destinations? I’d love to hear about them!