Traveling with Family

It is time to get back to posting about ideas, after a long series of stories, and the end of camp seems like a good place to stop.  I have had a few concepts on hold while I got to a breaking point.  Since I am writing this on an airplane full of small children, that seems like the most relevant topic at the moment.  "I myself do not enjoy the society of small children...I recognize this as a defect in myself." (C.S. Lewis)   While I do anticipate having children in the future, the part of that process that I am actively looking forward to is when they are older.  I am aware of the prerequisite for raising older children, but I am not necessarily looking forward to that stage.  I have no doubt that I will grow a ton during that process, and learn all sorts of new things about myself, but it is a pretty intimidating idea.

And traveling with small children, all the more so.  I have enough issues dealing with airports and security, that I can't imagine navigating that process with small children.  Traveling by car seems much easier.  While you may have to deal with the constant inquiries of "are we there yet?" at least you control more aspects of the journey, and have more flexibility.  Unfortunately you can't pull over when a baby decides to throw a fit at 36000 feet.  The more children you have, the more economical the driving solution becomes.

As someone who usually travels alone, it would probably be faster and cheaper to fly to most of my destinations, than pay for the gas to get there.  But driving gives me an adjustable schedule, and the flexibility and comfort of having my own vehicle available.  Even just getting married will probably change that equation significantly further in favor of driving, doubling the price of flying, while providing the benefit of having someone to talk with when driving all day.

Another aspect of driving with family, and specifically children, is entertainment.  But when I was a kid, we took a number of road trips, and besides a couple of children's books, the primary source of amusing diversion came from looking out the window, to see the areas that we were traveling through.  The same was true when in an airplane, seeing the geography of the land below.  Having good vision probably helps make that more interesting, as I can make out the details of what is below.  Now days, kids are kept occupied by watching videos on their parent's iPad, or playing Angry Birds.  And anyone older is constantly texting or browsing Facebook on their cell phone.  Just look in the window of any car you pass on the road.  As someone driving alone, I don't have any of those issues, as I am usually kept occupied by actually driving the vehicle.

I'd like to think that I will be one of those parents who doesn't use Angry Birds as a digital pacifier, but we will have to see what happens when I am actually in that situation before I can really make that claim.  But at a certain level I am looking forward to having someone else to share the travel experience with on occasion.  And that is obviously not the only reason I am looking forward to getting married.