Four years ago I took my boys to visit my folks. We flew, and as anyone who has flown with children knows, it was a nightmare. Flying as a single mother, leaving from LAX, was all the worse. My youngest was under a year old and had to be carried. I also had to take his car seat so there would be one for him when we reached our destination. That left me to juggle a baby, a car seat, our luggage and a 4 year old through the jungle of LAX. I had taken the stroller so I could just push the boys through the airport, with the car seat attached to the stroller and the luggage in the storage bag beneath. When we reached the scanners, I was told I had to collapse the whole thing and carry everything through, without assistance. So there I was, trying to hold a baby and collapse a stroller single handed while keeping an eye on my oldest, who was a darter (we now know he is on the autism spectrum.) No one came to our assistance. I struggled for at least 10 minutes to situate everything and get through the check point while the security staff belligerently snapped at me and passengers gave me the evil eye for extending their wait. Forget chivalry; common courtesy was dead.
When we finally reached Georgia, where my folks live, my oldest puked all over. I had flown one other time with him, and he had developed a terrible rash with blisters all over his face. I now decided that he was allergic to flying and that we would not make the journey again until my youngest was 5, hoping that would be a point when everything would be reasonably manageable and less distressful to my oldest.
My youngest is nearly 5, and now my mother tells me that my grandmother won't be around for much longer. I want to see my grandma before she passes, not after. I want my children to at least have a retainable memory of her. So we're going back.
But my oldest, who will henceforward be called, per his choice, Sand Gecko, is now mortally terrified of flying. If you've ever worked with a child on the autism spectrum, you know that you would literally have to bind and gag or thoroughly sedate him to subject him to a source of stimuli that distresses him. In my son's case, it would mean that he would be running, biting, kicking, scratching, throwing things, punching... First of all, I do not want to cause my son such trauma. But furthermore, can you see that going down at LAX in today's security paranoia? I suspect we'd never make it to the plane.
So, we're driving. My first concern about driving was how my children are going to survive countless hours of stationary positions, boredom and possible motion sickness. While I've talked to many people who report that their children don't have a choice about bearing long drives, that they do what they're told, I am one for compassion and accomodation where possible. At least, I figured, I could work in two 1 hour rest breaks in addition to time to eat each day. But where would we stop, and what would the kids do?
And then I became excited. The one thing I remember with any sense of happiness from my childhood was the exploration of National Parks my dad arranged. We went to The Badlands (my favorite,) Mount Rushmore, The Petrified Forest, Yellowstone, Mesa Verde, The Grand Canyon, Yosemite, and the list goes on. I loved it, and I've missed it. Now I could take this opportunity to introduce my children to those adventures.
I'm going to use a trip planner to pinpoint National Parks along the route, from Southern California to Northern Georgia. We'll stop for an hour at two sites each day. That doesn't seem like long to enjoy the visit, but for my sons it will be just enough time.
I am thoroughly excited and so decided to blog the trip to share it with friends and family, and anyone else who might enjoy the tale. At this point I am debating whether it would be safer to publish our identities with the thought that the more people who know to look for us, the greater our safety net; or if it is more dangerous to expose ourselves to potential psychos. Either way, we're taking a male companion for safety, and until that decision is made, we'll remain anonymous.
