Every year, Jeff takes off for two or three weeks to head to the Santa Rosa area for a private men’s camp. He is the camp’s caterer, bartender, fire-starter, etc. and gets the privilege of spending a few weeks of each summer in the beautiful coastal mountain air (it is also a lot of hard work and long hours—but he loves it).
This year, with COVID canceling most of our summer caterings, Jeff encouraged me to take a vacation while he was away, perhaps with my travel-obsessed dad. I sat down and did what I always do when planning anything: I did hours and hours of research to figure out what the perfect vacation for us to take would be.
My dad and I have always traveled well together. He was the one who took me to look at colleges and then later flew with me to look at law schools. We have gone on countless tours, stopped for countless ice cream sundaes, and bought countless postcards all over the country. Unfortunately, at the end of 2019, he was diagnosed with Multiple Myeloma, a blood cancer. As such, we all had to be extraordinarily careful during the COVID-19 pandemic; he was dealing with a depleted immune system and contracting COVID would have likely been devastating for him. Thankfully, he is doing well with his diagnosis and we have both received our COVID vaccinations, so I knew this was the time to really plan a special vacation. And then it hit me:
My dad has been wanting to drive Route 66 for years. He has collected books and maps on the subject and even bought a “perfect road trip car” (his words) right before the beginning of the pandemic. We both agreed that now was the right time to get some miles put on the car.
At first, we talked about only doing half of the Route, perhaps stretching a few stops so that we could venture to National Parks along the way. But, the more and more research we did, the more we realized that we had to just go for it: we were going to drive the whole Route.
So, I sat down to do what I do best: plan. It was a challenge for me to plan enough stops to where we saw everything that we wanted to see along the way, but also allow for stops to take longer than I expected, or for us to find an unexpected stop we wanted to check out.
And guess what? It didn’t always work out the way I had planned it to. Rainstorms and road construction delayed our travels. We missed stops because we were tired and ran out of time. We had to cancel AirBnB reservations and scrambled to find hotel rooms. But it all ended up working out.
We were able to see some of my dear friends from Cal Poly who have moved all over the country. We were able to catch three baseball games, including one at historic Wrigley Field. We were able to experience Midwestern thunderstorms, Southern BBQ and Southwestern landscapes. We met so many different and wonderful people and saw so many amazing and quirky sights. And, most importantly, we were able to spend time together as father and daughter.
I don’t know how many more road trips I will get to do with my dad, but I know that we are both so grateful that we were afforded the opportunity to do this one. He is already talking about doing the Route again on his motorcycle. I think that I will skip that adventure!
Follow along with our pictures from the trip on Instagram by clicking “see photos” at the bottom of the page.
-Kathy