Chapter 159: The Past Is Prologue

Thursday, July 5, 1984

We met Mom and Dad for breakfast at the hotel, then hit the road around 11, heading to Andrew and Millie’s place on the lake. That was a bit of an adventure in the RV, simply because some of the roads were a bit narrow, with limited visibility and many low branches. Going slow was the name of the game.

We got there well before dark, at least, and in plenty of time for one of Millie’s wonderful dinners. Everyone wanted copies of the recipes again.

Andrew and Millie both toured the RV and seemed impressed. I wondered if they might consider traveling that way. Millie seemed disinclined to fly, and they didn’t travel much that I knew of.

In a rare divergence from our pattern, Angie and Paige took the guest cabin for the night, leaving Jas and me the RV to ourselves. That was nice — it’s not that we minded them being there, and we’d have very limited privacy for the next month or so, but it was nice to have a couple of nights to ourselves.

That said, the RV’s walls were thin, we were parked near the house, it was very quiet outside, and it looked like everyone in the house was sleeping with the windows open. We still needed to exercise considerable restraint. Mom and Dad hearing us would be much worse than Angie and Paige!

Friday, July 5, 1984

We did very little all day. Dad (who had, again, stayed up very late with Andrew) slept late, while the rest of us hung out and talked. In the afternoon, each couple took a short canoe trip.

It was nice to have a quiet day like this. Of course, we could have a quiet day anytime we wanted while we were on the trip. It might make us miss something else, but that’s how life is — every choice you make takes away the option to do something else. If you get too wrapped up in the fear of missing out, you’ll miss out on other things, like the joys of a quiet, stress-free day in the woods by the lake.

Dinner tonight was just as wonderful as yesterday’s dinner. This time, we wound up reprising some of our numbers from ‘Bye Bye Birdie’, which Millie in particularly really loved. That, and Angie performed her (national champion!) Humorous cutting, Paige performed her (national runner-up!) Dramatic cutting, and Jas and Paige performed Jas and Carole’s national runner-up Duo routine. Paige wasn’t as good at it as Carole was, I was sure, but it was more than good enough to impress.

Dinner and a show. Nothing wrong with that!

Saturday, July 7, 1984

All good things must come to an end, and the family trip was coming to an end. We said goodbye to Andrew and Millie and were on the road to Chicago by ten.

We would stay one more night in the RV park we’d stayed before, after which the plan was for Dad and Mom to fly home and the rest of us to head east. As before, I’d drop them off at the airport before we hit the road in the RV.

Angie started poring over the road atlas and making notes at about the halfway point of the drive. Just about as we reached the Illinois state line, she said, “I think we need to cancel the east coast part of the trip and just head west.”

Jas said, “What?! No Broadway? No Smithsonian?”

Angie said, “Okay, here’s my thinking. We have four weeks or so. I know that sounds like a lot. Working backward, though, it’s going to take us at least three days to go from southern California back to Houston. Probably four, and that’s assuming we don’t stop in Vegas. Or Phoenix. Or Tucson. Or El Paso, or Albuquerque — which is way off the route — or tour anything. Figure we’ll want a couple of days in San Diego and a couple of days in Los Angeles, plus a travel day. Add another travel day up to the San Francisco area, and at least two days there. Two is cutting it short. Then we need a travel day for maybe Portland, and another for Seattle. We’re basically at two weeks and that’s left out Yosemite, actually seeing much of northern California, the entire California coast, and so forth.”

Jas was starting to nod along.

“Working out from Chicago — three days to get to Yellowstone in an RV, absolute minimum. Two is crazy. Heck, three is probably crazy. Then we’d want a couple of days there. After that, probably two days to get to Seattle, seeing little. So that’s another week.”

“I see it,” Jas said.

“Yeah,” Angie said. “Two days from here to the east coast, if we drive like crazy. At least three to even see DC and the museums and, like, drive down Broadway. That’s it — not see a show. Or we cut museums and see a show, but we have to drive back, because we only have a week.”

“So we use four days driving and three days to sightsee on the east coast, which is totally too little,” Paige said. “Yeah. We need to make that its own trip and use that week for places in the rest of the country.”

“We’re still missing a ton, ” Angie said. “We’re not even getting into Colorado, for instance, and there’s so much there I want to see. But we’ll get to see a lot, and I know we’ll make it to New York and DC and Philly and the rest. Just ... not yet.”

“I’m good with it if the rest of you are,” I said. “I had some doubts, but I hadn’t paused to add it all up.”

Angie said, “It felt like more time when we started, but I hadn’t really added up that it’d be a week into July before we got to touring. I mean, of course it was going to be this late, but it’s just... ‘the family trip’ didn’t have time attached to it in my head.”

“Or mine,” I said.

“Yeah,” Paige said. “It feels like a month is a long time. Then, when you break it down, not so long.”

“We’ll be very busy,” Jas said. “Lots to do, lots to see. But I agree — two weeks of just touring the east coast makes a lot more sense. Maybe that’s one trip, maybe two, but ... some other time.”

“So, we head west later today?” Angie said.

“Sounds like we need to,” Jas said.

“Can you find us a good place to stay?” I said.

“On it!” Angie said. “Figure we get in three hours of driving after Chicago?”

“That works,” I said.

After about ten minutes, Angie said, “You’re never going to guess.”

“Should I be worried?” I said.

Angie chuckled. “Wisconsin Dells. Or we could stop at Portage, which saves us a bit of driving, plus staying in the Dells.”

“It looked plastic-y and awful, but fine for a night,” Paige said.

“And it’s the sort of place that would have RV parks,” Jas said.

“Oh, it’s got plenty. We should be fine, even in the summer,” Angie said. “Especially on a Sunday night.”

“The Dells it is!” I said.

We changed plans based on where we were going. Instead of leaving the RV in Skokie, we took Mom and Dad in the RV to near the airport, parking in an empty business lot and detaching the car for the last few miles. Jas and Paige said goodbye there, while Angie and I said goodbye as we dropped them off.

Both of them thought it was funny that we were staying in Wisconsin Dells. We did, too, of course.

We told them we would call tonight about seven, when they were supposed to be home, and check in. It wasn’t like we were going to check in every day, but they could page us and we could call them, and we wouldn’t go more than a week without checking in.

As we were parting, Mom said, “This was really fun! I’m glad it worked out so well. It’s new, and different, but ... I really liked it! More than I thought I would!”

Dad nodded. “It was. It’s ... well ... maybe this is how the future will be, and it feels good. Like what we would have wanted, if we’d really taken the time to figure out what we wanted.”

“I feel much better about everything,” Mom said. “Except for your aunt Helen. She is going to be a problem.”

“Anything new?” I said. Mom had been tight-lipped since that conversation.

“It’s ... mostly it’s about Ma, right now,” Mom said, “But she said some things that...”

She paused, then shook her head. “That would be gossiping, right now. Just ... we’re not out of the woods, there. I wouldn’t care, but it messes things up for Tim, and ... well, now you understand about sisters and brothers.”

I smiled. “Got it. Thanks, Mom!”

“You’re welcome!”

We hugged again. Then they headed into the terminal, while we hopped back in the Subaru and headed back to the RV. Hopefully, they would have a good flight. As for Aunt Helen, she was somebody else’s problem, at least until we had something else to do in Stevens Point.

Or until we had a wedding. I suspected Jas and me getting married would be problem enough. Angie and Paige? That ... would be a whole different kettle of fish.

On the drive up to the Dells, we talked about plans for the drive. Since we had time, we decided to add Mount Rushmore to the itinerary, plus a drive through Badlands National Park (which was still pretty new). Devil’s Tower was in the area, and we should have no problem getting there.