I do not tend to take surprises very well, and I generally do not like to travel. (At least, not without a lot of planning and foresight and something to do beside listening to “Crocodile Rock” and “Rockin’ Robin” on an endless loop while traveling cross country in a very tiny car with three other family members.) My mother on the other hand, likes to be spontaneous and unpredictable. She liked to pack up and just go places, usually dragging the rest of us with her.
On one occasion, we had a family trip that was so spontaneous we did not even get a change of clothes.
I do not really remember what made mom want to go on a sudden trip (without I might add, any idea of where she actually wanted to go). It might have been because of an argument with someone, or because of a monumentally bad day at work. All I remember is that I was reading a book, and suddenly, mom was telling everyone to get into the car. We ended up on the highway heading toward Flagstaff and drove most of the afternoon and early evening. After driving around all night mom said, “okay, where does everyone want to go?”
“Home,” of course was not an acceptable answer, so after some argument we decided on going to see the Grand Canyon. After some more looking around, Mom was able to find a motel and get us a room. We were all tired and cranky and ended up watching and episode of the original Star Trek on the motel television.
After breakfast we went with to see the Grand Canyon, which we could not take pictures of because of the many things we did not bring, a camera was one of them. We were all very rumpled and it was hard to appreciate the scenery (or the extremely tame deer) when you are still extremely tired, cranky, and wearing the same clothes that you slept in. That the trip would have been more fun if we had been better prepared goes without saying.