As Seen in the February 2009 issue of Bella Magazine

Our family of seven isn’t invited too many places. Those who invite us to stay at their homes can be:
a) instantly nominated for sainthood
b) listed on the fingers of one hand
c) seen calling Stanley Steamer as our van pulls away
d) all of the above.

It’s not that we mean to be a traveling catastrophe. That’s just the way we roll. Once a year or so, we embark upon a New England Odyssey to visit family and friends. This consists of us spending one or two nights in each of three or four states, while we rack up 1,600 miles on the odometer. Now, doesn’t that sound like fun??

When the kids were smaller, we thought we had it rough because we had to pack diapers and bottles and their itty bitty clothing. Now, all of our children are adult-sized except for 10-year-old Julia. Being the little one, she gets crammed in the back, between two man-sized brothers. She usually ends up crying at some point. Who can blame her?

Our seven-passenger van is ridiculously small to hold both our family AND our luggage. Heading off with our brood is akin to fitting a bunch of clowns in a VW Bug. To make more space in the car (without leaving kids at home!), we’ve tried various car toppers. We haven’t had much luck. One car topper howled so badly that we all wanted to pluck ourselves bald by the end of the trip. The next car topper, the famed “Soft Pack”, was mercifully quiet. It lay silently on top of the van, sucking all of the moisture out of the sky. When we arrived at our destination, oh, how delighted we were to find that all of our duffels, pillows and sleeping bags were drenched. Our entire visit to Grammy and Grandpa involved bringing our wet items to the Laundromat. Can you say “family fun”?

Everyone wants to be comfortable on a trip. When the kids were little, their comfort came in the form of a little “lovey” object, like a stuffed animal, and perhaps a baby blanket. Now, comfort has hit the Big Time. We begin with ten pillows and five blankets so no one is forced to share. Then we add a cooler, snacks, iPods, headphones, Gameboys, games, chargers, cell phones, books, schoolwork that never gets touched but likes to go traveling, and our two specialty totes. One tote holds all of our cosmetic bags or “ditty bags” as we lovingly call them. The other large tote is for shoes.

On an average trip, we will carry fourteen pairs of shoes. If there is going to be a dressy occasion, add seven pairs. Recently, in a desperate attempt to simplify, I assigned the dress shoes their own tote bag. Now, doesn’t that sound simple?

On the Odyssey, we had a small near-catastrophe which involved putting a cheap plastic suitcase next to a burning hot radiator. The suitcase melted. We salvaged what we could, and tossed the suitcase. Casting about for a new suitcase for the Traumatized Traveler, my eyes lit upon the dress shoe tote. Lickety-split we emptied it of shoes and made it the new suitcase. The dress shoes would have to travel home in a kitchen trash bag.

Because we try our level best to be nice guests, we always sweep, strip the beds, wipe the bathroom counters and of course, take out the trash. We do this because it’s the right thing to do, and also so that if we aren’t invited back, we can be sure it wasn’t because we trashed the joint. We did all this tidying up before leaving The Melting Suitcase Inn.

Fast forward to the morning when the boys realized they had to wear dress shoes to school that day. The nice shoes were nowhere to be found. When they played the game of “When was the last time you saw your shoes?”, the sad answer was, you guessed it, at The Melting Suitcase Inn. In our frenzy to clean spic and span, one of our fabulous helpers chucked an extra trash bag. And that’s how all of our dress shoes ended up in a dumpster in Massachusetts. (C’mon, who could even MAKE this stuff UP??)

You can clearly see that traveling with our five teenagers is a total laugh riot. Yet, it’s a lot more pleasant these days than when we had five kids under the age of six. I think it’s because the kids are old enough to pack their own luggage AND carry it to the car. Instead of bottles we pack Dr. Pepper. Instead of Disney sing-along songs, we can all rock out to the Mama Mia soundtrack. Recently we were stuck in traffic for two hours and not a single child burst into tears or struggled to get out of their seats. We’ve come a long way, baby!

Traveling with my family is finally something akin to the fantastic bonding experience I always dreamed of. In my eyes, you can’t play The License Plate Game too many times. When asked to comment on how he feels about long car trips with the family, our handsome (single!) 17-year-old son Alex says, “I just sleep the whole time.” Come to think of it, that’s a survival strategy he often employs. C’mon, Alex, get your head in the game! I think I just saw a license plate from New Mexico!


Martie Smith Byrd , husband Dave and their brood enjoy the simple life in Roanoke, VA. She writes this missive on the eve of another scintillating road trip, this time to Jacksonville, FL. Log on to http://www.martiebyrd.com/ to see what happened on that trip. By the way, Alex says to take out the word “single.” But he does concur that he’s handsome.