One day many years ago my husband walked in the door from a long day at work and I presented him with an idea. The older two boys were young teenagers, and in hindsight I think having the twins 10 years old and soon to be teenagers as well, there must have been some inner need to grab onto every last moment I could have with them. I had already told them about my plan, but would need to clear it with their dad first. The three of us were very excited as we surprisingly witnessed my husband have a minor melt-down.
The idea the three of us had concocted was to go on a mini excursion once a month called "Destination Nowhere." This would entail the three of us piling into the mini-van and heading out in whatever direction the wind was blowing and drive until we felt like stopping. We would check out the area, get a hotel room, find a place to eat and log our experience. We had even talked about taking one direction a month. We could go north one time, west the next and so on.
This was long before the handy-dandy cell phones that had unlimited range and service. At this time those large flip phones were just rolling out and extremely unreliable. This was long before any type of GPS program in that large flip phone or in the dashboard of a ten year old mini-van. This was still back when there was no texting, or face-timing, or even emailing from a vehicle.
In our opinion, this was going to be a very educational venture tackling the unknown. We were going to chart out and find new destinations. But in my husband's opinion, we were going to attempt a hair-brained idea that was going to get us killed. He suddenly imagined every horror film he had ever watched all rolled up into one. And leading the charge of his innocent sons was this insane wife of his who was going to find only disaster. His explosive reaction was so great that the boys and I decided to table the idea for a future time.
In fact, my husband's reaction to this was so great that well over twenty years later he still tells people out of the blue, "Let me tell you about something Callie was going to do with the boys one time….Yeah, and they even called it destination nowhere!" It is like he is still trying to wrap his brain around the idea. An idea I still to this day believe to be a great one even if it could only eventually be lived out with quick day trips to New Orleans, Baton Rouge, or the movie show.
I had lived a very sheltered life in the small town of Franklinton, and in my mind every town or city would be as welcoming. I had not thought out all of the "what if's" my husband seemed to realize instantly, like what if we got a flat tire? What if we actually got lost? What if it got dark and we could not find a hotel? What if the hotel had a crazy man with a knife to stab us in the shower? What if that man had a dead mother up in an attic sitting in a rocking chair? My husband went over all of these scenarios with us until we were scared to death.
And now, after all these years those two boys are grown men who have traveled from Peru to Ecuador to France to Ireland. They have stayed in hostels, and hotels, tents and villages. And each trip my husband shakes his head and says, "Yeah, they do these things because of that time y'all were gonna just go off like lunatics." Maybe so, or maybe they just have that adventurous spirit and as grown men they can change their own flat tires and use proper equipment to navigate. All I know is it sounded good at the time and we had great fun discussing all the possibilities. But at this age as for the grandchildren, the adventures will remain in the backyard.
