Taking my 70-year-old-plus in-laws on a 1,800-mile, seven-day road trip had potential relationship calamity written all over it.
My in-laws' vacation history includes sit-down meals just 15 minutes into the start of a long day's drive, genealogy-inspired gravestone stenciling and anguished moans at missed shopping opportunities -- none of which I find comprehensible.
I wondered how three decades of strong in-law relationships would survive an excess of 50s music and Cracker Barrel consumption, particularly after my father-in-law let me know he had mapped every possible stop at those "Old Country Store" restaurants on our route.
Once the trip was gifted at Christmas, there was no turning back. We would travel from Chicago's suburbs to Washington, D.C. to New York City and back home in seven days.
The reward for me was time with my wife, who recently relocated for work to Long Island City, New York. For my in-laws, it was play time with the D.C. grandsons, drinks and dinner with three of their four children, the 9/11 Memorial, a couple of shows (Jim Parsons' play was a particular treat to diehard Big Bang Theory fan-in-laws) and a two-hour side trip to photograph a Brooklyn apartment complex my grandfather-in-law lived in during the 1930 census.
Somehow, it worked. While we didn't discuss rules before departing, several elements contributed to the trip's success:
- Start on time. My mother-in-law deplores early mornings, but our schedule dictated several starts before 10 a.m. She was ready each morning to alleviate the peak of my schedule progress anxiety.
At the trip's other end, we drove 13 hours straight from Long Island City (stopping only for two sit-down meals). We made it, but were all strained when a bridge-work-based highway closure added 40 unexpected minutes to the very end of our trip.After a week of nearly continuous interaction, our friendship both survived and strengthened, with a multitude of new memories to fuel future discussions and the real possibility of enjoying future trips.
In the next couple of months, I'll take another East Coast trip, this time with my mother in the passenger seat as her Christmas gift. I expect the same success, following the same unspoken (though now written here) rules. This time, though, I'll add overnight stops driving both directions.
Earlier on Huff/Post50:
