Road trips

After my first husband (the father of my children) and I divorced, I was bound and determined I would move back to Long Island. The plan was I’d live with my mom, while the girls and I resituated. There were many trips up to Long Island. The girls became familiar with many landmarks along the 6-hour route. One of the favorites was a building on Staten Island that they called the step building as this meant we were almost to the Verrazano Bridge and almost to Grandma’s.

Long story short I opted to stay in Maryland. There were many road trips that were just the three of us. In addition, to the trips to Long Island to visit grandma or go to the shack there were vacations to Myrtle Beach and other destinations. As a single mom, I had to be frugal with vacations, so driving was the norm. As they matured beach vacations were replaced with spa weekends.

My older daughter was much more of a homebody and opted to go to college locally. The younger sought more adventures. As she was preparing for college this included a road trip of universities in the North East that had potential.

One of my fondest memories is of the night before she was leaving for college. She and her sister crawled in bed with me and as when they were small the three of us shared a bed for the night.

With this new age, our road trips were replaced with weekend getaways. For the years she was in Boston, her sister and I would pop up for visits now and again. Moving between apartments was always an adventure.

After graduation, she moved to Austin. We discovered Southwest had direct flights from Austin to Nashville and fro BWI to Nashville. Our weekend getaways moved to Nashville. Typically, we’d try to make it a spa weekend but the important element was to be together.

Her next move was to New York City. By now her sister had moved to Buffalo. The road trip was resurrected. I met the older one in Buffalo and we drove to NYC for time with her sister.

It always amazed me with each of their moves how many were scheduled when there was a ton of snow. But in spite of this, we would get through the move more deeply connected than before we had started.

Her next move took her out of the country. Specifically to Hong Kong. Our weekend getaways became more of a challenge but at least once a year we would make it happen. I knew the older ones boyfriend (now husband ) was a keeper when a) we scheduled to meet for the first time at Newark airport, and b) as a surprise for her birthday (and kept it a surprise) took her to Hong Kong to celebrate with her sister.

The next move took the little one to Germany. As wedding plans loomed we needed another weekend for wedding dress shopping. Ultimately, we decided on London. The weekend logistics all fell in place. The older one was working in Vegas the week before, I in Houston. The flights from Vegas to London were fairly inexpensive. So I flew to Vegas, met up with the big one, and we flew to London to shop. The dress was spectacular but the weekend more so.

Now, that they are both married with children, weekends away are a challenge but thanks to video chats we see each other more regularly and our legacy moments continue.