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50-state family road trips packed with memories
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By Jerussa Levy
NOLA Catholic Parenting
As a mom, the reality of our oldest son entering high school in 2011 felt like a daunting leap of faith out of the protective environment of elementary school, where we all knew the families.
Processing these emotions, which at times were purely irrational, I came up with a plan: We needed to do a family trip for an extended period where we were all disconnected from the outside world, and everyone was together all day.
What could be better than a 14-day, 2,600-mile road trip to the Northeast in our Honda Pilot with our four sons (then 12, 9 and 6-year-old twins)?
That was the birth of our family dream of seeing all 50 states in under 13 years.
Only God knew that my initial plan of kidnapping our kids for two weeks would be the greatest memories we would have over 10 summers. Our sons ended up loving it more than we did, and the initial restless question of “Are we there yet?” turned into “I can’t wait to get there!”
Every Jan. 1, we decided on the region of the country we would visit. We had paper maps, atlases and Google maps to help us chart our course. It became a tradition every year. Initially, we asked our older sons to research an attraction or city that interested them. We would include that in our itinerary so that they were invested and active participants.
On our second road trip to California, one of our twin sons was the photographer and videographer. He had a very small, handheld video camera. He loved it, and we all loved those moments when he took it out, wondering, “What has captured his attention this time?”
From the Midwest to the Heartland to New England, to the Mountain states, the Pacific Coast and lastly to Hawaii and Alaska, we all had our unique family bonding experience. The 30,466 miles traveled on the road were full of laughter, favorite playlists, car games, storytelling, physical exhaustion and even mental fatigue – but all priceless memories.
One constant for us at the start of every morning drive was praying the rosary as a family in the car. We explained the importance of placing God first before all our plans of the day. We prayed for protection and fruitful family time. It never failed. That’s not to say we did not have our share of hiccups and inconveniences that included kids getting sick at different parts of the journey, getting lost and car troubles. But, we were never without God’s grace and protection amid these obstacles, which made for some great storytelling and scrapbook photos.
We also made sure that once our agenda was laid out, we looked to see what city we would be in on Sunday to attend Mass. It was special to share Mass with Catholic communities across the United States, meet their priests and receive a traveler’s blessing. The churches were unique and beautiful in their own way. At times it required extra travel time, changing plans, and sacrificing certain places on the list of things to see.
It was an example to our sons of how to follow the proper order of responsibility in our lives as Catholics: God first, followed by family, self, work, then extracurricular activities. This order ensures that we have peace in our lives, which is simply “tranquility of order” as a priest once told us. God is generous, and he provided in ways that were greater than expected when putting him first in our day.
This summer, returning from Alaska, our 50th state, was full of emotions of a dream fulfilled as well as of God’s generosity and undeserved grace. I hope you, too, are inspired to take a road trip with your family.
Jerussa Levy is an associate clinical faculty member in the LSUHSC School of Medicine. She and her husband Les are parishioners of St. Clement of Rome Parish in Metairie.