Holiday Roooooooooad

Hearing my parents say "We're moving to Arizona and you can come if you want" wasn't too surprising. If you know my parents you know they're always going somewhere (and usually somewhere warm). They're also pretty big on Calvin and I being independent, which is why I wasn't surprised they told us we didn't have to come with.

What knocked me off my feet was when they said "Oh yeah, also we're gonna drive there".

What.

Look, I know there are families that are into cross-country driving, and camping, and fresh air and all that but I think it's important to know who you are. That's why I always play Guitar Hero on "easy". I know who I am. I also know that we're not a Road Trip Family. And I thought my parents knew that too, but apparently not. I envisioned this trip going about as well as me playing Guitar Hero on "expert" (you know what I mean, you can only go about ten seconds before you mess something up and everyone and a bunch of CGI punks are yelling at you, minus the CGI punks). And to be honest, I was dreading it all summer. When people asked if I was excited to move, I always replied with "I'm excited to be there", which was true. It was just the whole "getting there" part that was making me nervous.

Dad decided the best way to prepare the family was for us to all watch the movie "National Lampoon's Family Vacation" before the trip, a plan that was about as successful as having us watch "The Mummy" before we went to Egypt (Pretty sure I cried. Whatever, I know who I am). Suffice it to say the Griswold's antics did not assuage our trepidation about the road trip.

To recap:

My parents moving to Arizona: not surprising

My parents choosing to drive to Arizona: surprising.

My parents calling it "Hamping": unfortunately, not surprising

What is Hamping, you ask? It's when instead of camping, you stay at a different Hampton Inn every night. A good idea, a cringe-worthy term.

I decided the way I was going to survive the trip was by giving myself something to look forward to; I'd take a Polaroid* every day and post it to Instagram/Facebook along with a short description of the day's events. (*yes I know, they're technically not actual Polaroids but for the sake of brevity I'm sticking to it). What I posted were colorful, somewhat artsy photos of quirky landmarks, successfully giving the illusion that I was 1. a put-together individual with the time, budget, and skill needed for photography, and 2. Having the time of my life.

I mean, look at these:

There is absolutely nothing to justify this quasi-"tumblr-aesthetic". It's a damn Sonic.

I call this backdrop: "Hampton Inn Lobby Wallpaper". Admittedly, that's what most of them were.

Just look at all the quintessential Americana I experienced. My man in the back is playing a washboard.

For this day, I wrote about the museum in Kansas dedicated to "The Wizard of Oz", the best thing to come out of cinematography (and of Kansas). What I left out was that I had a legitimate panic attack after walking through the dark forest simulation (Say it with me, "I know who I am").

Overall, the road trip was neither as bad as I had anticipated, nor as interesting as I made it look online (this is the case for most things in life). Yeah, we did some cool things, but ultimately I spent around 50 hours looking at the back of the passenger seat (as a matter of fact, take another look at the last picture. The "backdrop" is literally the floor of the car. I was running out of options, man. Hamptons apparently only have like three paint colors). There was the Cookie Fiasco of 2k16 which was the only time all four of us have been that angry simultaneously. But we also visited Barringer's Meteor Crater, which was one of the coolest things I've ever seen, and I'm so glad my family was there to experience it with me.

Don't get me wrong, I think social media is great. We live in an amazing time. Things that are important to us personally can be just as easily documented as things of national importance. I feel bad for people who complain about selfies, etc. I would love to be able to see pictures of my parents or grandparent's childhoods from their point of view. My grandkids will have the ability to see what it was like being a teenager in the 2010's, from sources other than articles with titles like "Lazy Millenials" or "The Selfie Generation". And while I acknowledge that what we post on social media is often an augmented version of our lives, I don't think that's as bad as some say it is.

That being said, I would like to leave you with this. If I were to have social media-ed honestly, and I mean really honestly, about the road trip, I think I know what I would do. There's one picture I haven't posted anywhere yet that sums up the trip better than any Instagram-filtered, knockoff Polaroid ever could, and it's this:



I love this photograph for so many reasons.

1. It's from the backseat of our car, my point of view most of the time.
2. Mom, in her big sunglasses, has spotted another Amazing Thing that she must document.
3. She does so by contorting her body so she's half in the backseat.
4. You can just hear Calvin and I yelling "Mom! Are you serious? You're in my face!"
5. You can see Dad choosing his battles and offering no comment.
6. It was not posed, or altered in any way. This is my real life. 

7. There's a certain beauty to it, which I couldn't quite put my finger on until I remembered Fibonacci's spiral. 

I mean, look at this. It could be a Renaissance painting.


They say a picture is worth a thousand words, and in this case it's accurate. This blog post is about 1,000 words and the whole thing could have been summed up in this one incredible photo.