Road Trips are in my DNA

The women in my family have always been big on road trips, whether for necessity or pleasure.  My mother has memories of moving from one Army base to another: her mother the solo parent with four little ones in the back seat.

When my girls were little, my mom and I used to get up in the middle of the night to begin the 17 hour journey from our home in Tampa, Florida, to my sister's house in Cincinnati, Ohio.  We loved the dark hours before the sun came up when we could talk and share stories and drink coffee while the girls slept tucked away in their car seats.  When they woke up, they knew PopTarts were on the menu--something that would never happen at home.

So it was natural that I would say an enthusiastic yes when Shelby asked me to join her in Portland to drive all her college things back to San Diego.

Coming into the Portland airport was bittersweet.  I've traveled here so many times in the past five years.  The first time when we went for our orientation tour at Linfield College.  Then in the fall when the leaves were glorious shades of orange, yellow, and red, to comfort a homesick freshman unaccustomed to rainy weather.

So this trip is the end of a chapter and the beginning of Shelby's life as an adult.  I stopped to get coffee and waited on the curb by baggage claim for her to pick me up.  True to form, my packrat beauty was easy to spot from a distance: her bed strapped to the roof of her car, every inch of the inside packed full.

Life passes too quickly, but I am convinced these trips are gold: crammed together in a car surrounded by the remnants of her college life, we munched on PopTarts and drank too much coffee.