Over the River and Through the Woods... We Hope

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: It’s five days before Thanksgiving, and while some of us are polishing silver and calculating how many pounds of turkey per guest, many of us are checking the oil or packing our carry-ons in anticipation of the dreaded Journey to Thanksgiving. 

Obviously, it’s not always dreaded. When we got out of the Army and moved back to my mom’s native New York, we always spent the holiday at my Aunt and Uncle’s home outside Utica. It was about an hours’ drive, literally over the river and through the woods, and even in the upstate NY snow belt, it wasn’t usually coming down too hard at the end of November. At the conclusion of the trip, the promise of good food and wine (for the adults) and visiting the neighbor's horses (for the kids) was well worth the effort. 

 

Moving to DC for grad school threw a wrench into that easy jaunt. I had to fly if I was going to make it home and still get back to class the next Monday. This was the dawn of low-fare airlines in the US, and I spent one miserable day-before-Thanksgiving trying to bushwhack my way through the transportation system with my new-ish boyfriend, a law student named Ross Hugo-Vidal. 

 

We took the MARC train from Washington to BWI Airport for our flight on People's Express (anyone remember them?) But, alas, it was one of those years when it was snowing like mad in Syracuse, and we got stuck in the brand-new Newark airport. The People's Express terminal was still unfinished, and had no chairs. We spent hours alternating sitting on our luggage, and on the chilly floor. There were no cell phones in those days, children, so we had to make regular visits to the help desk to beg for news. 

 

Eventually, we were herded onto a plane bound for Rochester (where it was also snowing.) Only an hour and twenty minutes away from home! Except by the time we arrived, it was close to midnight, all the services were shutting down, and the weather was worsening. We split up - I stood in line to get a hotel voucher from the airline's customer service, and Ross ran to the Avis desk and rented one of the last cars available.

 

The next morning, the storm had passed and he drove us to my folk's place. My mom always said take a challenging trip with someone you're serious about; it shows if they have the right stuff to be a good partner. It did, and he was, and I married him eighteen months later.

 

 

As parents ourselves, we fell into a three-year rhythm: One year hosting, the second with local friends, and the third trekking down to DC to join the family there. I just checked with Google Maps, and it tells me the average driving time between my house and my sister's is 8 hours 40 minutes to 11 hours 50 minutes. Friends, this is a foul lie. We never made the drive in less than 13 hours, and on several occasions it took up to 16 hours.  

There was the year it rained so torrentially in the Philadelphia area the NJ Turnpike closed down and we had to figure out how to navigate local surface roads, via maps and following the unending stream of traffic. Did I mention the NJ streets were also flooding?

 

There were two separate occasions of an overwrought teen leaping out of the car at a stop and refusing to get back in. There was the time we were staying at a hotel instead of at Barb's and while trying to navigate there, I accidentally drove through the Pentagon parking lot. Late at night. The Pentagon police who stopped me were very sweet.

There was a year when there was a cattle truck accident on Interstate 95, and the traffic was so backed up we didn't arrive in Northampton, to drop Victoria at her college, until 3am. We spent $250 for a hotel room we used for five hours. 

This Thanksgiving, I'm journeying again to DC, but this time, solo, and flying (something financially out of reach for a family of five.) I'm also hedging my bets by leaving on Tuesday morning and returning on Friday night. I look forward to smiling down at the traffic along the way. Unless, of course, there's snow...

Dear readers, what are your memorable Thanksgiving journeys?