Hit the road, Jack

(CANADA) – It has been a longtime coming, but it is finally here. 'It' being a Floridian vacation for the Family Man crew.

The bags are packed. The car gassed up. The GPS programmed. The iPad ready to roll.

Just as we are, ready to roll. To hit the road. To flee the cold Canadian climes fora week under the sun. The real sun. The sun that generates heat. That sun.

Travel is an obvious challenge for a family of five. Flights are frankly unaffordable for us. Five grand it would have cost to fly the crew south for the week on the Canadian carrier, Air Canada.

Five. Thousand. Dollars.

The discount airlines could barely do better than that. Even the ones that startfrom the States.

A four thousand here. A thirty-four hundred there. All out of our realm—for reasons of cost, for certain, but also for reasons of convenience, considering the multiple accessories a family of five requires on vacation.

Like a car for a week.

And car seats.

And a double-seating stroller for a day at Disney.

And golf clubs. Can’t forget the golf clubs.

All that, plus luggage, plus the crew itself: Mrs. Family Man Muser, myself, and our multitude of miniature additions, combine to make me rather do anything but fly.  

So that is what we will do. We are travelling to Florida the old-fashioned way, but with the new-fashioned toys to make it more tolerable.  

With a trusty co-pilot, Ginette P. Sauvé, GPS, leading the way.

With an iPad strategically placed so three pairs of little child eyes can connect tothe goings-on in Glee: The Concert; Annie: The Musical; Gnomeo and Juliet; Cars; Coraline; and a couple of other classics that should at least tame the tiny and tempestuous tushes that can, and will, most assuredly struggle to stay in place in hours four, five and six, ten, eleven and twelve, of what will surely feel to them, maybe even to us, like an interminable trek.

We have taken to these trails before, four years ago, back then with but a couple of baby girls in our back seat. One was barely two, the other not even six months.

It went so well that perhaps the ease of that vacation set the tone for this one.

A 24-hour drive. A day. But over three days.

It will be a grind, for sure, although the reward on the other end promises to make it worthwhile.

Sunshine. Heat. Swimming. Disney. Golf. Laughs. Memories.

This will be our first real family vacation as a family of five. The first time we dare direct ourselves so far south that we can’t even say we will be there tomorrow. Or even the tomorrow after that.

That is how far Florida is from here.  

And how far we will drive. Just to get there.

Because we still have to get back.

But for now we are not thinking that far ahead.

For now we are concentrating only on getting to Maryland, then Georgia, then Florida.

The rest we can worry about next week.

But to do that, we have to get there.

It is time to hit the road. To hit the road, Jack.

Signed,

The Family Man Muser

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