Destination: Destin (Part I)

The last time we traveled during a spring break was 11 years ago on our honeymoon. We were both in college (on the 10-year plan) when we got married and planned our honeymoon around our spring break. But, we did it this year—we were spring breakers.

When we got Phillip’s school calendar this year, Jeff said he wanted to go away for spring break, he wanted to go some place warm and get away. If you know me, you know I am not a good traveler. This was not always the case. In fact, I blame the nomadic nature of my childhood on my distaste for travel as an adult. We were always traveling when I was growing up.

Now, I see how fortunate I was and am grateful for my parents dragging us here, there and everywhere. And, I want my kids to have that experience too. But for now, I think they are too young to really get anything meaningful out of such trips and it stresses me out too much to even think about making one on the scale we used to make.

We always went to visit my grandparents who wintered in Naples. We went skiing once a year—first in Michigan and later in Colorado. We went to the Caribbean several times. We went to California, more trips to Colorado, New York City, I went to England, Arizona, Texas, Louisiana, and usually Michigan in the summer to escape the Indiana heat and humidity. We went to Chicago at least three times, maybe four or five times a year. We were always going by plane, train and automobile; but mostly by plane.

Now, I hate planes. I all but refuse to fly. I haven’t been on an airplane since Phillip was one and I cannot see myself getting on one anytime soon, at least not without being medicated. My growing fear of flying is multi-dimensional and based on a mix of fact and fiction—and I fully admit the fiction part is completely irrational, but none the less—it’s there.

So, for now, when we travel, we drive. And, truly with three little kids, I think it is the easiest way for us to travel right now. I need to have that level of control provided by driving. I need to be able to take what I want to take and stop when we want or need to stop. We need a car where ever we go that can hold three car seats (oh, and our stuff). And so it goes. We set out for spring break last week—destination: Destin, Florida.