The Great American Family Roadtrip

This is the time of year when many families are experiencing that ritualistic beating of The Family Road Trip. Coolers are being packed, favorite blankets are being clutched and hip flasks are being concealed. And, as usual, tempers will flare before the tailpipe scrapes the pavement in front of the house.

So why do we do it?

Ever since Eisenhower improved our highways, American families have felt the call of the open road. But in 2009, why do we keep answering?

When I was a kid, the family summer road trip was basically a hostage situation. My father's scheduling would have us seeing the lower 48 in six and a half days. Like most fathers, he was obsessed with numbers. What kind of time are we making? How many states are we seeing? What kind of gas mileage are we getting?

We would be in the car for 15 hours a day, using a milk jug as a chamber pot and eating white bread from the bag. My brothers would thump me on the head, call me a homo or bruise a bone at least once an hour. My sister had to pee every 15 minutes and the milk jug just didn't cut it for her.

I do remember a good bit from my family road trips but mostly just remember sitting in the backseat of an Oldsmobile with my feet up on a cooler, trying to stave off atrophy and paralysis, and fiercely protecting my 2 square feet of the world from three siblings.

My mother, whom I deeply love, was a classic over-packer. Dad would make her nervous with our strict departure time, so she would throw anything and everything into the trunk at the last minute, just to be sure.

I swear, opening the trunk after she had been back there was like setting off an IED. We once hit a bump in Tennessee that sent the contents of a double wide onto the highway. It was like cleaning out an attic as we picked our stuff off the road.

"Mom, did we really need to bring stilts?"

"Just watch for trucks, dear."

Our car was also hotter than Satan's armpit. My Dad refused to run the AC because of the "drag on the engine." Never mind the 2,000 pounds of landscaping stone my mother had packed – the AC was the thing that put a "drag on the engine." Our sedan was basically a traveling convection oven that baked Southern children and poor attitudes. Fights were common and violent. In fact, I remember one time, someone threw a stilt at me.

But, regardless of the petty faults of my family, the broken bones and hospital bills there was effort and my parents took me somewhere every year, no matter what. I still remember sitting on Canal Street in New Orleans just after a drunk driver crashed into us, helping my dad tie the bumper to the top of our yellow station wagon. Ah, memories. They are the true reason why we Americans continue piling on the miles each summer. Well, that and the chance to see how long it takes to fill a milk jug.