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.
Lovely 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!