Wacky Wednesday -- A Wacky Family Road Trip

Yes, I realize that it's not really Wednesday.  Sorry about that, but I just had to share about our wacky family road trip coming up. 

Now, this is not a road trip with my current family, Brad and Bethany.  Oh, no....this is a road trip with my original family...the family I was born into. 

My cousin's daughter is getting married in DeMotte, Indiana, on Saturday, and we will be making a very quick trip from Arkansas to Indiana this weekend.  "We" refers to my parents, my older brother, and myself.  Bethany has to cheer at the football game Friday night, and she and Brad have tickets for the Razorback game on Saturday.  My brother's family is also involved with other activities, so it turns out that just the two of us will be making the trip with my parents.  Now, the four of us have spent lots of time in the car together, just not for the last two or three decades.  When we were kids, growing up in Wisconsin, we made made many a trip to Indiana and Illinois to visit grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. 

I suppose my brother and I were like most kids riding in the back seat on a road trip to visit Grandma.  Remember, these were the days before flip-down TVs, portable DVD players, Nintendo games, iPods, or even Walkman cassette players.  We basically only had each other to keep ourselves entertained.  We rarely never wore seatbelts, and apparently we had trouble staying on our own side of the seat.  At least I seem to remember my father drawing an imaginary line down the middle of the back seat and threatening us within an inch of our lives if either of us dared cross it.  I can't imagine what we did that annoyed him so.

And for the life of me, when I try to picture in my mind what it's going to be like riding in the car all day with my parents, that's how I still see it.  I see my dad driving and my mom in the passenger seat, and my brother and I, both in our mid-forties now, sitting in the back seat whining about who looked at who.  And then my dad slowing down to a crawl, threatening to make us get out and walk the rest of the way to Indiana. 

That visual picture just tickles me.  I suppose that in reality, my brother and I will do most of the driving, and my parents will be sitting in the back seat or taking turns in the front passenger seat.  However it works out, I'm expecting it to be one wacky, but memorable, road trip.  And maybe my brother and I will even take a turn in the back seat, and play a couple rounds of "Rock Paper Scissors"...just for old times' sake.  As long as he doesn't smack my wrist too hard when I lose.  I don't want to have to walk to Indiana.