Tales of an Adventure Down Highway 1

Driving, Singing, and Talking:
Tales of an Adventure Down Highway 1

To celebrate the end of a really challenging year, my son and I took a vacation beginning on the first day of summer break. We planned our travels to cruise Highway 1 from San Francisco down to San Diego. That highway is my happy place, and skateboarding is his, so all of the boxes were checked. (Or so we thought).

As we arrived and picked up our rental car for the week (a convertible), everything seemed off to a great start. We enjoyed our first seafood lunch and drove the coast to our first hotel. It was a beautiful hotel with a gorgeous view. We were greeted by nearly a hundred surfers grabbing their first waves of the summer. This is how you vacation, I thought to myself. The next morning, our travels started in earnest. We drove several hours down the coast stopped for a short visit to the wharf at Santa Cruz and then landed in Monterey. We climbed on the rocks and watched the seals and dolphins in the bay. Grabbed a pizza and had a late afternoon swim. It’s just the kind of vacation I love. Driving, exploring, eating, and chilling.

The next morning, our drive continued. This time, we drove down past Big Sur. If you have never been on this stretch of heaven, it has to be seen to be believed. There are turnouts every 50 feet it seems and there is no such thing as a bad view. I have written in my will that I’d like my ashes sprinkled off the coast or Big Sur. We drove for hours and hours and just as we reached the end of the Big Sur area, we passed a road closed sign. The thing that makes this challenging is that there are very few places to connect with other highways. And so, we had to turn around and drive back…almost all the way to Monterey.

We finally arrived in Pismo Beach around dinner time. I was exhausted. And hungry. But also, I was beginning to worry about the idea that my kiddo wasn’t enjoying the trip as much as I was. We ordered really great room service and watched a movie. The next day?? You guessed it. More driving. Soooo much more driving. But this time, away from the coast and into the desert-All the way down to Palm Springs.

It was on this leg of the trip that the kiddo broke out his music downloads. Bob Marley. Eminem. And imagine my surprise when he began playing Steely Dan and Peter Frampton. He loaded it on his phone because he knows they are my favorite. We drove through the wind turbines and past mountain goat crossing signs. Past Joshua Tree. And we finally arrived at our final destination.

We had a lazy day together before he met up with his mentor and went on his own vacation, skateboarding all over southern California. And I had time to myself to return the rental car where our journey began. I listened to a great book on Audible and to lots more music. Sometimes I turned off all the sound and just soaked in the beauty. But there was a small part of me that was worried that the kid and I had spent way too much time driving and not enough time doing all the other things.

I headed back home and waited for the few message he sent from his adventures with his mentor. I have learned that because he has ADHD, he is sort of an “out of sight out of mind” kind of person. So to guide him, I asked a simple question each day that he could answer with a short answer. ‘On a scale from 1-10, how much fun are you having?’ And ‘tell me the top 3 parts of your day.’

When he returned to Nashville, he had a so many stories. And after a few of them, I gathered my courage to ask if next time we take a trip, we should drive less and do more. He didn’t skip a beat before answering “moooommmmmm, the driving was the best part. That was the whole reason for the adventure…you got to show me your idea of California, then I got to make my own”.

So I guess the whole point of this blog is simply to remind you that it’s all about the journey. Not the destination. And if the journey includes a lot of driving, and talking, and if you’re really lucky, some music downloads you can sing together…well, then the destination doesn’t even matter. You can take that trip anywhere, anytime, and I promise the memories will be just as magic.