Rooted Pages

The art of leaving: Chapter 2

The funny thing about road trips is that we always imagine them like a movie montage—windows down, hair blowing, snacks perfectly rationed in labeled Ziplocks. (Why I wasted hours on Pinterest making lists of “road-trip hacks” like I was about to become one of those A-list moms can only be explained as pure masochism.)

The reality? Five hours into our move, we were parked at a truck stop in the middle of a rainstorm—soaked, exhausted, and debating the finer points of why we thought this was a good idea in the first place.

Dinner that night was DoorDash Wendy’s, and if you think I’m exaggerating when I say the teenagers lost their minds over a Taki meal, I assure you, I am not. Nothing says “cross-country caravan” quite like soggy fries and neon-red snack dust.

The next few days blurred into a rhythm of KOA campgrounds, gas station pit stops, and family chaos on repeat. At one KOA, the kids made a beeline for the camp store like it was Disney World. At another, the dogs managed to get hopelessly tangled within five minutes of being leashed. By day three, I had completely stopped asking our cat—Dobby—for forgiveness and just accepted that he now considers me his mortal enemy.

Of course, no family road trip is complete without the kind of moments you’ll never live down. Like my best friend deciding to give me a full hair touch-up while we barreled down the interstate in the RV (10/10 recommend if you enjoy the adrenaline rush of beauty services at 65 mph). Or the time my son threw up in a KOA pool, and I, in full martyr-mom mode, cleaned it out just so the kids could keep swimming like nothing had happened. (If that doesn’t earn me sainthood, I don’t know what does.)

And somewhere between the laughter, the late-night talks, the tears, and yes—even the fights on the side of the road while the dogs took poops—my marriage of thirteen years got sturdier. There’s nothing quite like navigating U-Hauls, cranky kids, and the world’s most dramatic cat to remind you that you’ve got a partner who will stand in the rain with you, argue with you, laugh with you, and then climb back in the driver’s seat anyway.

Through it all, we were our own little caravan: an RV pulling our lives in miniature, a U-Haul trailing behind, kids and pets in tow, and just enough humor to keep the wheels turning.

Finally—the arrival. Five days, countless miles, and approximately one million snack wrappers later, we rolled onto the East Coast. The salty air hit like a promise: that what we left behind was only making room for what’s ahead.

We made it.