I raised my boys on the road. An unexpected divorce left me with half an income, a freelance career, and two kids, not yet 10 years old. It was hard enough learning the parenting handbook for divorced dads, though lord knows Park Slope, Brooklyn, had plenty of readers.
Summers hit hardest. Dough was short, writing work slowed, and pricey sleep-away camp was out of the question. That’s how I arrived at The Big Summer Vacation with a gentler single parent’s budget in mind. I combined my passion for road trips with Avis and Hampton Inn’s willingness to open the doors to America, and off we went.
My parents never took us to Disneyland or Six Flags. The Grand Canyon and Yosemite were the stuff of someone else’s childhood. Maybe that explains my odd penchant for visiting non-destinations, like 300 miles of Kansas wheat fields on two-lane highways dotted with tornado-blown bunk houses and 12-foot sunflowers towering in the brilliant blue skies.
Remarkably, the boys took a shine to these meandering journeys, and the forever placation of the who-gets-the-front-seat fight was road food. We listened to country music on the AM radio, windows down, hot wind whipping through the car, while the boys studied the Rand McNally atlas, giving them agency to pick the next meal stop. They acquired my taste for the retro diner (which usually was not retro “out there”), the local taco hacienda, the drive-through DQ. Whatever road weariness or missing of their mom transpired, the moment always met a happy compromise over fries and a shake.
We quarreled in Marfa, watched heat lightning in Dodge City, and got chased in North Dakota, after nabbing a photo in a farmer’s swaying corn field. My eyes were glued to the gun rack in his pickup for a long few miles before he made a U-turn and vanished back into the endless maize horizon.
The boys are grown now, and I mostly make these trips alone. But when they discover me on the Insta in Montana, West Texas or the Upper Peninsula, it always draws a DM of “awwww Dad, why didn’t you bring me along?” I showed them a real America that many have never seen. I hope when they have kids of their own, those asphalt highways will still beckon. There are plenty of luncheonettes waiting to be explored.
Remember when the days were long
And rolled beneath a deep blue sky
Didn't have a care in the world
With mommy and daddy standin' by…
…Who knows how long this will last
Now we've come so far, so fast
But, somewhere back there in the dust
That same small town in each of us
I need to remember this…
–Don Henley, The End of the Innocence
Always hungry,
Ken Carlton, Editor-in-Chief
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Housekeeping Note: Comments open to everyone today. We’d love to hear from you. Favorite road trip? Great On the Dish story. Got a local place we need to review? Please, scribble away!
I take my kids on road trips too. I hear people talk about the far-flung resorts, and it doesn't interest me. We've learned so much on the road.
I love this.