Home sweet home …..
Hi,
Now that we are at home (and going back to work today) I’m not sure if I’ll write all that much more about the trip (maybe). But, I thought for now, that I would just write a few thoughts. The first is for anyone thinking about travelling with children, well, teenagers. As you might imagine organising even a short trip like this, while working and maintaining a family, takes a lot of energy. Barry and I felt exhausted even before we left, but then that didn’t seem to dampen our enthusiasm for looking around. In those months while we were organising we asked the kids many times – where do you want to go? what do you want to see? Naturally enough, I guess, they didn’t have a lot to say on this, after all when you’re living in the moment (as I think kids do) even a couple of weeks seems like a long time off, and as neither of them have travelled overseas before, of course, they wouldn’t know what to expect.
Joey had said, at an early stage, that he wanted to visit Detroit, and because the city was 1,000 miles away from New York, and something of an unknown entity, we went for the plan that we took. As the trip drew closer Joey reminded us, so we put it into his lap, okay, let’s look at the options, lets see if we can work it out, but he didn’t want to put any time into it, it should just happen, well, this time it didn’t – and probably that was for the best. Though, after visiting Harlem I think it could have been really interesting to visit Detroit, and Chicago, at that, but these are the factors that you have to balance and come out with decisions. Naturally, the longer you can stay the better, though while we were in the planning stages we decided to cut back on time, mostly because we weren’t sure how it would go with the kids – would they get along? would we get along as a family? how would it go sharing a room together for an extended period? So many unknowns.
And as it was Hannah was certainly ready to come home when we did. She could have easily come home a week earlier, and Joey wanted to stay extra time, even though he was highly embarrassed to be with his parents and didn’t like practically any time spent at museums?!$#$% I feels like we’ve come off a high wire to some extent – we managed, generally, to get along and to have some good times, and I think particularly over time the benefits will be obvious (Joey is already looking up fares to go back) but for now settling back into home life feels okay to me and I’m looking forward to putting together our photos, films and mementoes, so we can look back and remember.
take care and best, Joan G
Tags: Travel
canberrians
I sometimes hop on the net to my favorite “bootsnall” site to browse the latest travelers…living vicariously from my daily 9-5 desk job here in the US (northern michigan to be exact). Typically its a younger US crowd traveling abroad so finding your site was a nice change. Wonderful to hear your persepctive of our US and from a “family” point of view (my children are close in age to yours).Most interesting how you felt things were not as expensive as you thought they might be…especially having vacationed in some of our most expensive places (NY & SF)! Makes me know to save more $$ when we plan our trip to Aus & NZ! Happy to read you felt safe…especially as a blatent tourist…I often wonder what kind of impression our US cities and its people leave, thank you for sharing. You missed nothing by skipping Detroit, a day downtown in the cultural center is quite enough but do add Chicago to your next itinerary and do a “roadtrip” next time too. To really admire the diversity of the US (or any country I feel) is to drive it. California to Colorado is some beautiful, diverse country from ocean thru mountains & desert & the tallest of majestic forests. Start saving now though as fuel costs would eat up alot of the budget š
I look forward to our trip to your side of our beautiful planet and hope it goes as smoothly as your visit was to ours.
Congratulations for making the leap ~ and thanks again for sharing ~ take care.
Hi Kim,
Thanks for your comments. As we mentioned, we really enjoyed doing the blog and its great to get comments. Yes, come to think of it the blogs that I’ve surveyed were younger travellers. And yes, I’d love to do the cross country trip though I thought it could work well by going Greyhound. Our experience going up north in the state of New York was good in this regard. The buses were reasonably priced and efficient, then you can sit back, relax, and read, or watch the world go by.
Nearly thirty years ago now, I spent close to twelve months travelling through South America using buses and trains and it was great. It’s terrific to admire the countryside though its also interesting to meet the locals, observe everyday life (including the media), and to gleen something of the local politics, via the cities or the smaller towns. I’d go for something of a mix I think.
What if we keep in touch and if you make it down here, to the land downunder, we may be able to offer some travel tips. We live in Canberra, the national Capital, and even if you choose not to visit our city, we could possibly give you some tips or contacts. What do you think? We’ve got your email address (as your comments were sent to us for modertaion) if you’d like we could establish contact and go from there.
take care and best, Joan G