Congratulations to MAREN, winner of a copy of Maddie Day's DEADLY CRUSH! (Maren, contact Edith@Edithmaxwell.com to tell her where to send your book.)
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?
No Thanksgiving journeying that I can recall . . . Thanksgiving was always at our house.
ReplyDeleteMay you have a safe, uneventful trip, Julia, and a wonderful Thanksgiving . . . .
Those ARE some nightmarish trips, Julia! I so agree with your mom about traveling with a potential mate.
ReplyDeleteWhen my son and his wife were in the DC area, they had a couple of those 12-hour drives to join me north of Boston. I host Thanksgiving every year and people come to me (I must get going on the silver, though...), which is exactly how I like it.
Have an easy trip and a lovely time with family this year!
We lived in the same town as both my parents’ families (15 minute drive), so no memorable Thanksgiving trips. I went to college just two hours away by car (no public transportation available)…so four more years of no memorable Thanksgiving trips. No good stories to share. But wishing you all safe travels and much to be Thankful for. Blessings, Elisabeth
ReplyDeleteMy family has always been nearby, so no travel. Thank goodness. However, when I was a teen, my much older brother was married and would spend Thanksgiving Day with his wife's family. We would have our Thanksgiving that Sunday. I remember one such Sunday Thanksgiving happened during a major snowstorm complete with thunder and lightning. I thought the world was coming to an end. Thunder and lightning during a SNOWstorm? But it got worse. Shortly after my brother's family left for home, the heavy snow took down the power lines behind our house. We were without electricity for eight days.
ReplyDeleteWhile this isn't a travel story, I did end up being shuffled off to my aunt's house, my brother's house, and my cousin's house during the outage. I suspect my parents got sick of my whining about being cold.
We were a subway ride to my aunt's house, nothing major happened. Safe journey Julia!
ReplyDeleteSafe journey, Julia!
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing your memories—what an adventure getting there with Ross! I have no Thanksgiving travel stories—we always had T-day in Portland and that was always home. I’m currently in a hotel in St. Louis, looking forward to seeing my son in a few hours. He got in late last night on the train. We’re visiting his 94- year-old great uncle and then flying back to Portland tomorrow to start prepping for Thanksgiving.
ReplyDeleteWow, Julia! Those adventures supply us with lasting memories! Love it!
ReplyDeleteJULIA: Good luck with the flight to DC. Air travel isn't as fun as it used to be.
ReplyDeleteJulia, I remember on this blog those days when you were driving to DC with your family--harrowing! Though I love the image of the overwrought teens:). I have repressed my many bad travel stories deep into the vault, but I definitely remember People's Express and the Newark airport!!
ReplyDeleteNo real travel adventures for Thanksgiving. While living in CA with the family in WA state, my husband, aka Johnny lead foot, would make the trip in 9-10 hours. I don't remember snow through Oregon, I do remember a lot of foggy mornings and a lot of rain. The kids were young; no teen drama fortunately. Only me muttering Frost ... miles to go before I sleep.
ReplyDeleteFrom Celia: yes Thanksgiving travel rather cancels the real meaning. One needs to be nimble. So even though I didn’t grow up in the USA with lots of horrific travel stories I do remember our first thanksgiving in Maine. Invited to our friends with the Camp on Estes Lake, we arrived to find our host, rear up, trying to mend the frozen piping and there was no water but the lake and a standpipe a couple of miles away. I clearly remember the two teenage girls who couldn’t possibly live another moment unless their hair was washed. Picture me heating water in the lobster kettle to oblige.
ReplyDeleteThen there was the travel to Bates College, a good six hours away in normal travel. Olivia plus friends set out in the Tercel which has an intermittent habit of switching off the engine. Calls for help had us setting off to rescue them stranded a hundred miles away in Ct. victor piked them into the Volvo for an exciting snow storm filled ride to Bates where they arrived in the middle of the night. I nursed the Tercel back to Chappaqua, my heart in my mouth, my mind racing as to what I would do if stalled out and which friend was closest. Of course this was BCp (before cell phones). Victor woke after a night on the floor of Olivia’s dorm to find he had a flat tire for his trip home. Still we live to tell the tales and laugh recalling how times gave changed but not the horrors of Thanksgiving travel. Good luck and Happy Thanksgiving to all.
What a story, Celia! Much more fun in the telling than in the doing!
DeleteLovely post Julia. I really enjoyed reading it. We alternated years with my aunt & family up in the LA area and our home in San Diego growing up. There was no major interstate in those days except for Highway 101. It took you through every single coastal town all the way up the coast, probably about an 1-2 hour drive. Today the drive up Interstate 5 is a straight shot but with traffic it probably takes longer! Go figure.
ReplyDeleteGreat memories - thanks for sharing, Julia. I agree, driving pre-Thansgiving is the pits. We used to drive to Manhattan ... I finally said NO MORE. We'd be celebrating at home and avoiding the parking lot known as Connecticut.
ReplyDeleteAnd all this time, Hallie, I thought I lived in the Nutmeg State.
DeleteLove reading your, and everyone else's< Thanksgiving memories! I grew up next to one set of grandparents and the other set lived two miles away, so I don't have any real travel stories for that holiday. My first husband, too, lived close to his family and not all that far away from mine. Things are hard for my grandchildren, though, even while they live close enough to family. Because their parents are split it involves a complicated arrangement between parents that have difficulty coming to any sort of fair compromise. My son's attitude is that it doesn't matter what the date is on the calendar, we'll celebrate when we can be together.
ReplyDeleteThinking back, I just realized I do have a sort of harrowing Thanksgiving travel story. Our holiday dinner was always late in the day because my father planned to spend the day hunting. That meant there was a lot of time to prepare the meal. On this one particular day, I had just received my driver's license but I had no idea how to drive a standard shift. My mother wanted me to take some things over to my other grandmother, 2 miles away. She knew I couldn't drive that truck but gave me a mini lesson, showing me how to shift. Nothing whatsoever about using the clutch. I insisted that my sister go with me and we set off just fine. Until I came to an intersection with the state road and there was traffic in both directions. Finally it was clear, but somehow I only got us halfway into the road and couldn't go farther. I had my sister get out and direct traffic. Some man came along behind us and seemed to realize what the trouble was. "Shove over and I'll drive," he said. Luckily for him the house we were going to was right up there on the right and not all the way to say, Catskill.
In the years since I have wondered how I was able to back out of my grandmother's driveway to go home. Oh, maybe she did it for me but I don't remember that. I do remember driving the whole way home in first gear!
Yikes, some highly fraught travel tales, Julia! Safe, uneventful travels to Barb's!
ReplyDeleteWe almost always host Thanksgiving, and have included our neighbors--who have nearly no living relatives left--for 35 years, including this year. However, since my oldest daughter moved north we have spent most Christmases driving back and forth. Santa had to know where to find my grandson, you know.
One especially memorable Christmas included giving a ride to my son-in-law's then-widowed and nearly blind mother. She lived near Dayton, and it was easy enough to stop and pick her up on the way. She was a nonstop talker, though, and four hours in the car together was a challenge. Except, that year there were ice storms throughout almost all of Ohio the day we had to come back home. Steve drove, and I gripped the door handle for 7-8 hours of creeping along with a million other holiday travelers. We passed so many accidents, but arrived safely at both homes.
Winner, winner, turkey dinner! Meanwhile, Edith says: the winner of her book from Thursday is Maren, and she should contact Edith@Edithmaxwell.com !
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Thanks, Hank!
DeleteThanks to both so very much! This year I have family that arrived Thursday night and will leave 6AM Thanksgiving. Nice visit. Affordable. Some people have said to me it isn't "right"? Seriously folks?
DeleteI don’t have any harrowing travel stories really . Growing up we had no extended family so we just spent Thanksgiving and Christmas at home with my family. The year my son had his driving permit, I was making Thanksgiving dinner for just the three of us. My husband decided that taking my son for a practice drive while I got the food ready was a good way to pass the time. It would have been fine except some idiot decided to prank call his sister, disguising his voice and telling her there was a bomb in her car! She pulled her car over to the center divide, called 9-1-1 and the highway patrol shut down the freeway in both directions for three hours! Yes, my husband and son were caught in the middle of it all. They had the adventure of getting to walk across both sides of the freeway, but luckily were on the correct side when the freeway suddenly reopened. (There were those who were on the southbound side and their car was on the northbound side - or vice versa - and suddenly were really stuck since traffic was now flowing at freeway speeds.) The turkey was a little dry but I was so thankful they were okay, I didn’t care.
ReplyDeleteHappy Thanksgiving to all. Safe travels, Julia and everyone who is celebrating away from home. — Pat S
You must have been so worried, Pat. Thank goodness it's just an entertaining memory now.
DeleteI felt like I was reliving my travels when I read of your escapades, Julia. I'm with Lucy/Roberta in that I've repressed a lot of those horrors. Still, I recall my spouse at the time always insisted on staying as late as possible before heading home on the Sunday after Thanksgiving. Me? I would have been gone Saturday at the latest. We were driving from FL back to KY and all I can remember was one year of endless taillights glowing in the midst of a downpour that apparently decided to follow us all the way home. It was a miserable trip and tempers were quite frayed by the time we arrived home in the early morning hours, knowing we had to be up and alert to start the new work week in just a few hours. Not fun. -- Victoria
ReplyDeleteSeriously, Julia, Utica? My mother was born on the family farm near Miller's Mills. I remember playing on the towpath as a child. My great-grandparents both lived to over age 100. Very familiar with those snowy roads and remember taking the horse and sleigh to Church on Christmas Eve on occasion. Thankfully, no travel nightmare stories, but I do remember one Thanksgiving so cold that when my father tried to smoke the turkey he could only get half of it to cook!
ReplyDeleteGreat tales of adventure, Julia and all. My best Thanksgivings have always been with friends who lived near by. As a child, I never lived near relatives, so those family Thanksgivings with Grandma, aunts, uncle's, and cousins were a story to me. As a freshman at college, I was invited to Thanksgiving dinner at my godparents' apartment in Manhattan. The Boston-NYC train that usually took about four hours took eight, packed with students sitting in three aisles on their suitcases. Miserable at the time, just a story to tell now. And no Thanksgiving for me those year. My husband and I are in Ecuador until early December. Greeting from Quito!
ReplyDeleteFor three years in the late 1980s, I lived near Albany NY (great job) but my grown sons and close friends were still in SF. One Thanksgiving, I boarded my plane to California with a fresh baked pie, cooked sweet potato side dish, and a bottle of apple cider. This was before TSA so the only comments I got were "um, smells good." Turned out I wasn't the only one carrying food either!
ReplyDeleteLast year, I didn't check traffic before I took off and got stuck in a jam. Took me 5 hours to drive what should have taken me 1. Usually, driving to visit my family in Northern CA isn't so bad. It's the coming home part that isn't fun at all if I have to drive home on the Sunday after Thanksgiving, which I do this year.
ReplyDeleteWhen my brother and sister-in-law lived in Dallas, we always went there for the holiday. One year, the bus I was planning to take to get to the airport was delayed. Part of it was mechanical, but part of it was that they decided to wait for the next departure when they got us on the bus, which was another 10 minutes away. I missed being able to check in for my flight by about 5 minutes. Fortunately, there was another flight about 45 minutes later, and I was able to get on that one no problem. But my family had to hang out at the airport and wait for me since I had coordinated with my parents and we were supposed to arrive about the same time.
In the late 60s I was in college in Austin, Texas. My parents were living close to New Orleans at that time, so I spent Thanksgiving with my grandparents. I'd hop on a Greyhound or a Continental bus in Austin, get off in Hillsboro, and my grandparents would be there to get me. Lovely times. Except for the bus. The strangest people rode the bus back then, and students and old people. One trip some little weasel kept showing me his little bitty Mexican matches. Oh puhleeeeze.
ReplyDeleteGreat stories, ya'll! When I was growing up, my family hosted. My mom's mom lived with us, and it was all mom's siblings and families (cousins, yay! kids' tables!) and sometimes my dad's favorite sister's family. Eventually my Finnish aunt (married to mom's youngest brother) took over, and she is still doing it. I think she's 90 this year? So we have a great journey of about twenty miles, and will probably pop in to see Rick's family, who are literally across a creek, next door to the house I grew up in.
ReplyDeleteGrowing up, Thanksgiving was always at my parents' house. Both sets of grandparents had already died when I was born. Throughout my life when I've heard friends or others talk about their grandparents, I know I missed something there, but then can you really miss something you never had. Hard to know. But, we always had a full table, with my three siblings and parents, and then when I was twelve, my oldest sister got married and had a baby, so by thirteen, there started to be nieces and nephews added. By the time I got married at twenty-two (why so damn early?), we were
ReplyDeletestill growing with babies. I can't remember if we went to my home the first Thanksgiving Philip and I were married, but since we had just been there, getting married the 23rd of October, we might have stayed here. I know we had our first Christmas with his parents because of the snow. I know think back how my mother must have missed me being there on those two and many more holidays. We don't think of that when we're young and in love. Then, finally, we had children, but since Ashley was born on December 26th, we didn't have Christmas with my parents until the next year, and it was really crowded with kids by then.
The only harrowing Thanksgiving story I have is that one year in college I decided to have Thanksgiving with my sister and her family in Chardon, OH (northeast of Cleveland). I flew for the first time in my life, and it wasn't a particularly encouraging experience. It was on a little plane out of Lexington, KY to Cleveland, OH, and there were thunderstorms on the way. But, here's the thing about being young and stupid, although I wasn't happy about the plane rocking from side to side, it didn't occur to me that I might not reach my destination. Looking back on it now, all I can say, again, is young and stupid. Now, one particular Christmas that Philip and I were going to my parents (a little over four hours, depending on traffic), our little car was packed to the gills, and we had our Cocker Spaniel we just had to take with us and a big cake I'd fixed that had to go with us, too. The only place for the cake was me holding it (plus, I didn't want it to get turned over or otherwise ruined during the trip). The only place for Barry, our Cocker Spaniel, was between my legs on the floorboard beneath me. So, we made the whole trip like that, and I must say that Barry was a very good boy during it. Of course, we had a blanket down for him, and he was comfortable. I, on the other hand, felt a bit like a pretzel. But, we made it, and there was no bad weather or tangled traffic to contend with.
When I was young we went to my maternal grandparents here in Atlanta so an easy commute. My mother was one of six children so with them, spouses, children, and a great aunt and uncle or so, there were always at least 36 of us. Same at Christmas and Easter. Grandmother made turkey hash served on rice plus all the sides. She also made her famous coconut cake. She started with a coconut and I loved to watch her. Once I married we alternated between my mother and his parents so had to fly to VA. Often a nightmare although the food made up for it. Plus my husband got to have his beloved Smithfield ham. Now we usually drive from Atlanta to his sister’s in Knoxville, only about 3 hours.
ReplyDeleteSafe travels to all.
Atlanta
Until a few years ago my Thanksgiving travels were no further than an aunt's house in Pacifica which is about an hour away. Now I get to travel, every other year, to Eugene, OR which is more like 8 to10 hours away by car and that's on a good day. This year I've been trying to figure out if I'm going to drive through the snow, which I have no idea how to do, on I 5 or drive up 101 and then crossover in Reedsport which is about halfway up the Oregon coast. Weather conditions are indicating that it is the longer route this year.
ReplyDeleteWhoops! Sorry I published this twice. Not used to posting using my phone!
ReplyDeleteYou had some adventures, Julia. Safe travels this year.
ReplyDeleteAs a child, we traveled from New Mexico to SE Kansas where both sets of grandparents lived. The memorable year was 1963, we left early that year because my grandmother was suddenly critically ill. All the way back to Kansas, we listened to coverage of JFKs funeral procession, interesting but sad obviously. When we arrived at my grandparent’s home, we learned my grandmother had died. Quite the memory. It was still a lovely gathering of family and my other grandmother hosted.
Most years we have traveled safely. Now we are at home and share a wonderful quiet Thanksgiving with our daughter and sometimes a friend or two. This year’s menu, by special request, is Mexican food. Yum.
A beautiful “Friendsgiving” to all. (Heather S)
I am impressed to read your informative blog while preparing to enjoy christmas bus tours.
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