Stella was 5, with bangs and a tiny voice and a stuffed mouse wearing a polka-dot dress, when we took our first long road trip. We were moving from Baltimore to Denver, and Stella and I drove on U.S. 50, an old highway, through small towns across the belly of the nation.
It was one of the most touching, and memorable, patch of days in my life.
Her younger sister, Ruby, was too young — 1 — for the trip in the car. She flew with her mom.
But Ruby never forgot the journey she was denied.
So after years of her asking, “When will we take a road trip, Daddy?” Ruby and I took our own drive, when she was 6, from our home in Boulder to the Black Hills of South Dakota. We stayed in rustic motels and cabins, visited Mount Rushmore on July 4, and even returned with an imaginary fly, named Melissa, that hitched a ride in the town of Lusk, Wyo. Melissa still buzzes around the house now and again, telling us about her daily visits to Whole Foods and The Kitchen restaurant (she’s embraced the Boulder lifestyle).
Now, dad-daughter road trips are part of our regular family life. In July, Stella and I took another trip, to Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming. When Ruby turns 12, we’ll hop in the car and go (she already has decided we are headed to Yellowstone, and online she has found us luxe lodges, with heated pools and spas; I don’t have the heart — yet — to tell her nobody will be placing little chocolate mints on our pillows in the evenings).
Every six years — when they are 12, 18 and so on — each girl gets a road trip. I want it to continue when the girls are in college, and as they pursue their careers. I hope their partners understand when they can’t make it to the Lady Gaga Comeback Tour because they are driving across the California desert with me.
Among other things, the long hauls encourage the sort of father-child communication that often gets lost after work or during a weekend bike ride — the kind of back-and-forths that don’t happen when the sisters are sparring, or when Mom and Dad are busy gardening or cooking or getting ready for a party.
My wife, Annie, envies the trips, but when I’m gone with one of the girls, she gets the other all to herself. And she’s thinking of launching her own road-trip regimen, as well.
The latest trip with Stella, 12, reinforced this vague feeling I had that the trips were more than just fun little vacations.
This time around, gone were Stella’s bangs; now her hair is long and obsessively washed and brushed. She still has the stuffed mouse, but she doesn’t carry it around with her; instead, there’s the purple, attached-to-her-body phone. On the inaugural cross-country trip, we listened to a tape of the fairy tale “The Frog Prince” over and over again. And over. Again. During the Grand Teton sojourn, she listened to radio stations that invariably are called “The Party,” or have the word “Hot!” in the title.
The first trip: Stella sat in back, in a car seat. For the Teton journey, she was beside me.
In other words, my little girl now is a much bigger girl. And it took the road trip for me to really understand how she has changed, and to appreciate the transformation.
Now I know: Stella is a no- nonsense, competent young woman who says “awesome” a lot, laughs easily, tends to win at card games and has an eye for photography.
She wasn’t just a beloved little one during the trip, a person for whom I was wholly responsible; she was an independent partner. She helped get the fire going for the evening meals; she cleaned up, without my asking; she pushed to hike repeatedly (it wasn’t too long ago that Stella hid at the mention of the word “hike”); she cracked jokes, and made me laugh. When I sliced my finger trying to open a package with a sharp knife, she found the first-aid kit within moments and began hunting for the things I needed.
When her bike nearly fell from the back of the minivan, it was Stella who saw it and shrieked; I pulled over just in time.
Thank you, Stella.
The trip ended more than a month ago, but we still talk about it nearly every day.
And even though it’s six years away, Stella already is thinking about her next road trip with me.
That alone reveals a lot. My tweenager wants to hang out with me.
The next trip can’t come soon enough.
Douglas Brown: 303-954-1395 or djbrown@denverpost.com
Road trips: An itinerary for bonding
My daughter Stella and I have taken a few long road trips, but the extent of our journeys don’t compare to those of Jeff Siegel and his son, Spence.
The two — a pair of total sports maniacs — began visiting arenas in 2000, when Spence was 7. Eleven years later they are still going, and have embarked on more than 20 trips, watching baseball and basketball games in 60 separate arenas.
“When you get out there on the road without a formal agenda, you run head-on into cool sights, sounds and experiences that nothing else offers like the open road,” said Siegel, whose new book, “Relationtrips: A Simple, Powerful Way to Bond With Your Loved Ones Through Personalized Road Trips,” details his and Spence’s wanderings. “He’s my best friend, and the respect we have for each other can’t be measured. That bond has grown exponentially over the years.”
He added: “The comfort and security of the car paved the way for us to have conversations about real-life, important topics, everything from growing up and the world around him and school, to friends and girlfriends and alcohol. I’m grateful for that.”
Now, Spence is headed off to college, where he plans to study sports communications. The father-son team is done with professional sports arenas, but that doesn’t mean the trips have come to an end. New professional sports stadiums keep opening, and baseball supports a thriving system of minor-league stadiums. The Siegels plan to remain on the road.
Siegel has learned a lot about these father-son road trips over the years. Here are some tips.
• Turn the planning and development phase of each trip into a multi-month experience.
• Involve your child in as many facets of the planning as possible.
• Look for opportunities for both of you to flex your creative muscles along the way (such as inventing games or trivia contests).
• Weave in cultural and other highlights to broaden the experience. (Visit local attractions, see family and friends.)
• Memorialize the trip in all of the many ways that are available to you, so that sights and sounds can survive well past the actual trips themselves.
• Personalize the trips. (The Siegels created T-shirts for each of their road trips, for example.)
• Be flexible. As well-planned as the trip may be, circumstances will present themselves that were unforeseen. This is a hidden benefit of road tripping. Look at such glitches as opportunities to live in the moment, and go with it.
Douglas Brown
