Red Eye
By Eric Tiettmeyer

"We are all pretty much alike when we get out of town."
Kim Hubbard I come from a family of great adventurers. Not the kind of adventurers that face rapids on the Colorado River, or bungee jump from hot air balloons even although they could have. No, we focus on the type of adventures that Bruce Northam defines as "the end result when something doesn't go as planned."

You see, I never left the States until I was 19, and split with a friend to work for 5 months in Switzerland. In fact, I never took a plane flight until I was 16. For my folks, that was luxury travel. Our trips always consisted of four wheels packed with a couple of blankets, a mini cooler, a collection of Mozart and Gospel music , and zero leg space. If you haven't guessed, we're from Los Angeles. We drove everywhere.

For me, the best part of these trips was their spontaneity. In the years before high school, my mom would wake up my sister Christy and I on a Saturday morning and say "grab your toothbrushes. We're going to Lake Tahoe for the weekend." That would have been fine, except that my Mom's Volkswagon Vanagon was the most unreliable car on the road and halfway up the first hill "R2D2" as we called it, would start making the funny noises it was named after, and eventually come to grinding halt.

Luckily, we carried our AAA Card, which was like gold for cheap tows and discount accommodations. In fact, my mom told me that after 10 tows in one year, we received a letter that our card would be discontinued although we were valued customers. Sometimes, we actually made it to our destination, and because the chances were slim to do this, it made the time there that much more fun. Those adventures drove me around California, up through British Columbia and around the States twice.

Recently, I took a four day trip to Vancouver, Canada with my Mom. It'd been thirty years since she had last traveled abroad. Even though she hadn't traveled as much as me these past years, I could see similarities in how we experienced other places: we basically managed as we went, talking it up with the locals on great places to see. It was that spontaneity that makes travel so fun for me.

Think of your travel experiences as a kid, and I think you will see similarities in how you experience the world today. In fact, you should take one of your folks on your next trip. I know I will, as long as it isn't on four wheels.

Stay on the move,
Eric