Dad jokes, drive-thru orders and singalongs — how bittersweet are the sounds of the American family road trip

By Jennifer Graham

As my children get to the ages where it feels vaguely wrong to call them “children,” I have reached the Clark Griswold-in-the-attic stage of parenting. If you’ve ever watched “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation,” you know what I mean.

There’s this scene where Griswold, the goofy dad played by Chevy Chase, gets locked in the attic and proceeds to pass the time by tearfully watching old family movies with a turban on his head.

That’s me — minus the turban — rewinding the tape of family summer road trips in my memory.

There were multiple trips up and down I-95 to visit grandparents in South Carolina when we lived in Richmond, Virginia; Potomac, Maryland; and ultimately Boston. The sweet sound of toddlers gently snoring in their car seats and the maddening earworm of Pokémon battle music. The smell of shared french fries and a diaper that needs changing. The bizarre, random sights: a horse-drawn buggy clopping down a road in Pennsylvania Amish country. A Burger King on fire by an exit in suburban Virginia. Nights spent piled together in hotel rooms hurriedly booked when Mom or Dad decided they could not drive a mile more. Then, the joy of waking up to a free(!) continental breakfast with a waffle maker and all. 

Never mind that, at the time, these trips didn’t seem all that great. No one puts four or five small children in an unreliable car and hits a crowded interstate for nine hours for the purpose of having fun. The fun is supposed to happen when we get to wherever we’re going.  But it’s funny how, in retrospect, those long hours in the car created what now seem to be some of the sweetest times we experienced as a family.

They almost make me want to pack the car, litter the carpet with cookie crumbs and empty Capri Sun pouches, and go pick up my kids — who are mostly adults now and would be very confused.

https://www.deseret.com/2023/7/9/23759846/american-family-road-trip