summer road trips

There is something about summer road trips. Everything feels easy. Clothing is light, sunglasses are on and the music is cranked. Sure, there might be traffic and the occasional rainstorm to deal with but I love how I can just get in my car and go without heavy winter clothing and a strict schedule.

I had that road trip feeling earlier this week after dropping one of my kids off at summer camp. The camp is about a four and a half hour drive away and, after I left him, it was just me and the open road. The sun was shining, I was playing my favourite songs at top volume and grinning like a fool. Part of my route was a familiar (and boring!) highway but the latter half was a road I had never travelled before.

As I drove, I smiled as I passed gorgeous lakes where the sun was shining bright on the water and I fantasized about the history of the dilapidated barns standing tall in the fields. Each small hamlet I passed through I wondered who lived there and what did they do every day?

With only the open road ahead of me, no one else in the car and zero distraction from technology I found myself totally free to observe with curiosity and let my imagination run.

I am not new to road trips. Especially in summer when the days are longer and the roads are clear. I have driven the Toronto-Montreal corridor on highway 401 more times than I can count and every time something memorable has happened on what is otherwise a super boring highway. One summer, a good friend and I drove her mother's Volkswagen Rabbit Cabriolet from Montreal to Toronto with the top down the whole way. We spent the better part of the drive hooting and hollering at whoever's attention we could catch on the road and arrived in Toronto a wind-tangled, sunburnt mess full of giggles.

That stretch of the 401 highway can be full of traffic, too. A few times, we've been stopped because of an accident and had to put the car in park and wait. On one of those occasions, my husband and I were invited to a nudist resort for the weekend by a swingers couple that was stopped beside us. That was a first for me. Other times, it has been an impatient, somewhat hungover, wait to get home after a big party weekend or sneaking into the bushes off the side of the highway because I had to pee so badly!

My favourite summer road trip was one that took place five years ago. I drove from our home in Southern Ontario west across Canada with my older two boys. After meeting my husband and younger son in Calgary, we continued on to Vancouver Island as a family. I had never driven through Northern Ontario or across the Prairie provinces before and wasn't sure what to expect. I was blown away. I loved every minute of exploring some of the vastness of Canada.

Northern Ontario was a hilly drive full of trees and lakes as we circled the northern perimeter of Lake Superior. As we moved through Manitoba and Saskatchewan I was speechless marvelling at the endless sky and bright yellow fields of canola as we roared along the wide open highway. We stopped in small towns for lunch and, at our hotel in Saskatchewan one night, watched high school kids get ready for their Prom. A far cry from the city parties I knew growing up, these kids were decked out in their cowboy boots and had come long distances from the rural communities they lived in to attend their high school dance. I loved seeing their energy and excitement.

As we moved further west into the Rocky Mountains we wove through mountain passes stopping to visit friends and hike along the way. We stayed a longer stretch of time on Vancouver Island but it still felt too short. We explored the old growth forests, spent time on the beaches marvelling at all the sea creatures washed up on shore and we hiked some of the Juan de Fuca Trail that follows the Pacific coastline of the Strait of Juan de Fuca. It rained a lot while we were there and, at night, we tucked into our cottage for endless rounds of the card game Prez.

It was such a tease to spend only a short time in the mountains and in the wilds of Vancouver Island before pointing our car back east to drive home.

What I loved most was our time together as a small family of five. I loved giving the kids a taste of the land known as Canada and a small appreciation for the vastness of the land. I loved figuring things out as we went. I loved how, by the end of our trip, the inside of our car was a disaster of belongings as we were ready to get home.

There is something about being in a car together that even when you aren’t talking you feel like you are hanging out.

Driving can take longer than flying but it allows for time together. Time to let conversations breathe and ebb and flow. Time to just be and laugh at the ridiculous you see along the way. Many of my happiest memories have come on road trips. As I drove by myself after camp drop off this week I felt nostalgic for road trips of years past. And, dreamt of road trips to come.

Cheers to the road. Cheers to where you’ve gone and where you are headed. Even when you travel a road you've been on before, no two trips are ever the same.

Tell me … do you love road trips as much as I do?

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