Having an Adventure: the Joys and Trials of Traveling

Inspired by a segment on "Sesame Street" where Elmo Monster is flying a jet while the girl group "En Vogue" sings about adventures, this became my young son's favorite catch phrase when he was growing up.Divorced when Aaron was just two years old, I embarked on a twelve year odyssey as a single parent that involved quite a few adventures. One of the most memorable was a vacation my son and I took together in the winter of 1999 when he was just eight years old.

Five years into my life as a single parent I had finally gotten a huge promotion in my job with a large insurance company and Aaron and I had moved to Michigan in the fall of 1998. After five years of having to watch every penny I was so excited to be able to finally afford a "real" vacation for me and my son. And while Michigan is beautiful in summer I quickly discovered that the winters were very unforgiving. (My first clue was when we received two inches of snow on Halloween!) Not being an avid fan of winter, I decided to book a vacation to Phoenix, Arizona for the week between Christmas and New Year's.

My eight year old and I easily navigated the flight from our home in Lansing, Michigan to a very nice resort hotel in Phoenix. We spent a wonderful week seeing the sights, enjoying the sun, and swimming in the hotel pool. On New Year's Eve we attended a street fair and stayed to watch a fireworks display to mark the entry of 1999. We spent the following day, New Year's Day, relaxing at the hotel and enjoying the last day of warm sunshine.The "adventure" began when it was time to head for home.

We awoke on January 2, 1999 to a sunny, 75 degree day in Phoenix. We planned to have a leisurely breakfast before heading out to the airport for our early afternoon flight to Detroit and then on to Lansing. The first sign of trouble was when our waitress asked if we'd heard about the big storm coming. I hadn't, and with the beautiful weather that morning it was hard to imagine that we wouldn't make it home.

When we arrived at the airport, a few flights to the northeast had already been cancelled due to weather but I thought perhaps there might still be hope that we could beat the storm before it reached Michigan. The airline indicated that our flight was scheduled to depart on time. We checked in and eventually we boarded the plane. The plane pushed back and started down the runway. And then, the unthinkable happened. The pilot turned around and headed back to the gate!

When we reached the gate an announcement was made that the Detroit Airport had just closed due to a major winter storm. We were told to go to the baggage claim area to retrieve our luggage since there would be no more flights out for the rest of that day.

With the Phoenix hotels already filled with other displaced travelers and with virtually no hope of securing another flight any time soon I realized it was time to develop a plan. Sleeping in the airport with an eight year old boy and paying the inflated prices for airport food for who knew how long was definitely more than my nerves, my wallet or my stomach could bear. When suddenly a bright idea hit me! I would rent a car and drive home!

Looking back, I can only say that I have no excuse for this crazy plan besides the blind optimism of youth and the fact that my brain had probably been fried by seven long days in the Arizona sun. Embarrassingly, I also did not have the foresight to request a four-wheel drive vehicle at the rental car counter, but rather, in an effort to be "thrifty" agreed to accept a Ford Escort. What was I thinking?

Aaron and I stopped for dinner and then at a bookstore to purchase a Rand McNally road atlas and away we went. By this time it was evening and the sun had begun to set and I started to realize the error of my ways almost immediately. As we left the city and ventured out into the Arizona desert, amid cacti, winding roads and ominous signs warning us to "Beware of falling rocks" I thought immediately of the movie "Pee Wee's Big Adventure" and Pee Wee Herman's journey into equally treacherous territory in search of his beloved bike.Driving until I was unable to keep my eyes open any longer we finally stopped at a lonely motel in New Mexico. As I carried my son to the room he patted my back and said, "Poor, tired Mommy," leaving me to only guess how bad my appearance must have been at that point in order to illicit such a response.

The next day we started out bright and early and made it to Columbia, Missouri. By this time we were starting to see the aftermath of the storm. The roads were clear but there was definitely snow covering the countryside. Little did I know that the worst was yet to come.

After making calls to my employer to let him know that I would need an extra day of vacation and to the kennel to alert them that we would be late in picking up our dog, Aaron and I embarked on another day's journey. As we reached Indiana the highway was like a ghost town with abandoned cars and semis littering the roadway. Bravely, we soldiered on, however, miraculously making it all the way back to Lansing in the tiny Ford Escort without incident, but feeling incredibly lonely with practically no other cars on the normally busy thoroughfare.

As we approached our house my heart sank. There had to have been at least four feet of snow in our driveway. At a height of only five feet even myself I warned my son to, "Stay in the car and don't touch anything" and then proceeded to wade through the chest high snow and enter my garage for the shovel. An hour later I was finally satisfied that I had cleared a path that would be sufficient enough to allow my child to exit the car without being swallowed by the avalanche. I watched with amusement as he exited the car and I realized that in the deep trench I had dug only the tip of the hood on his toggle button coat was visible above the snow embankment.

We collapsed inside and spent the next several days just enjoying the comforts of home. With visions of the exhausted guardian angels that had been watching over us on that fateful trip in my head I didn't think I should risk putting them to the test any more than I already had. But I think my son actually said it best, "Mommy that was definitely an adventure!"