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Xtreme Xcursion
Since our vacation involved a cruise, one of the pre-trip tasks was to select shore excursions—those activities you do when your ship is in a port. When we were in the planning stage and I asked K— about his preferences, he said simply, “Oh, you decide.” Ladies, a word of advice: men never actually mean that.
By the midpoint of the trip he was insisting that I chose the shore excursions expressly to kill him. It’s true that many of them involved heights, harnesses and sharp objects, but I categorically deny having mariticide in mind. I just happen to be the sort of person who thinks that something's probably not worth doing if you don't have to sign a liability waiver.
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My husband K— and I perfectly illustrate one of those marital axioms someone should tell you before you get married, but no one ever does: generally, if you can travel with ‘em, you can’t live with ‘em, and if you can live with ‘em, you can’t travel with ‘em. That is, for most couples the ability to travel well together and general compatibility are mutually exclusive.
Somehow, when K— and I are going to work or traveling separately, we both manage to get out of the house within an hour of waking, but when we try to go somewhere together, it takes two and a half hours of prep time minimum.
Take the time years ago when we set out to drive the 75 or so miles to get my wedding ring. Our journey had all the organization of a Keystone Kops car chase, and if viewed aerially, it would have resembled the trail of a rather dull rat in a maze it’s never seen before.
About 90 seconds after our first departure, K— said to me, “Where’s my coffee?” In what I hoped was a helpful tone of voice, I ventured, “In the coffee maker?” We turned around. In take number two, K— now suitably fortified with a hot beverage, we got as far as the end of our road before we had to return for the map, which was in my car—the one still sitting in the driveway.
On the third and fourth and fifth tries, we went back variously for his sunglasses, my purse, and (rather sweetly) the special CD of wedding songs he’d made for the occasion. On the last try, we got about five miles away before I asked the burning question that had been bothering me for some time, only I kept getting distracted: “You did turn off the coffee maker, didn’t you?”
Back home again, we realized it was so late we’d never make it to the jeweler before the store closed. That day turned into a trial run. We left everything (except the coffee) in the car and made the real trip the next day.
Given inauspicious early experiences like that one, you can imagine the trepidation with which we approached the prospect of a recent family vacation* lasting nearly two weeks. We knew it would be a minor miracle if we managed to get to the airport within two weeks much less to the destination—Alaska—and back. Plus, we’d committed to go on the trip not only together, but with four other members of K—’s family. Mathematically inclined as I am, I started to wonder: does chaos increase arithmetically or geometrically for each additional person on a vacation? Either way, things didn’t seem promising.
The trip began pretty much the way we all feared. Within a few hours of waking on departure day, we’d missed a shuttle bus, two of our bags were missing, and we’d literally raced through an airport terminal to make a connection with seconds to spare. “Definitely geometrically,” I concluded.
But suddenly and incredibly, everything went smoothly. Over the next twelve days we took planes, trains, automobiles, helicopters, rafts, canoes, Jeeps, busses, motorboats, a riverboat and even a tram, and we never woke up late, forgot a ticket or failed to have everything we needed. In the end our fears were largely unfounded. Two weeks after we left we came back an intact social unit not just on speaking terms but perhaps the way families are supposed to be after vacation: more tightly knit. At least two members of K—’s family expressed surprise at that, which I found kind of funny, because out of all of us, I’m the cynical one, and even I didn’t think we’d be at each other’s throats. I just thought we’d never make it out of the hotel. If we made it out of the state.
On the night of our return, as we trundled toward home in a rental car, we congratulated ourselves on how thorough we’d been and how much foresight we’d shown. Despite the rocky start and a few troubles on the back end, it had been a great vacation. Even though we’d been traveling all day, it was after midnight and a persistent rain was falling, we were positively exhilarated. We’d pulled off a major coup with hardly a hitch.
Very near home, K— said, “Well, we had a good time, but it sure will be nice to sleep in our own bed tonight. Do you have the house keys?” I reached for my purse and then froze. With a start I realized that in our manic focus on preparing for the trip, we’d forgotten to prepare for coming home. Not only had we forgotten to pack house keys, we’d also failed to bring any means of getting through the locked gate barring the road to our house—a gate that lay about a quarter mile from our front door. As I stared blankly out the window, the rain seemed to come down a little harder.
Okay, so maybe there’s still a little room for improvement in the “travel with ‘em” arena, but the trip was proof that progress is possible. I can say conclusively that all the average couple (or family) needs to travel well together is this: a very good packing list, an excellent travel agent, several months of advance work, GPS locators on their bags, a great big wad of money, a support staff of, say, three people to take care of things while they’re away, and an umbrella. Definitely, an umbrella.
* An article in the New York Times once called the family vacation a “contradiction in terms.”
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