We traveled in style. But whose style?

A road trip brings generational differences into focus.

Ready to roll. We traveled from Ohio to Canada and back again.

The car loaded, I climbed behind the wheel of Dad’s Subaru, with him riding shotgun, and messaged our Airbnb host: “We’re rolling out! Thanks for everything!” I put the car in reverse and rolled. Backing slowly down the long drive, I swung a wide turn into the silent, nearly deserted street – and heard a crunch.

Dad grimaced but said not a word. In his 98 years on this earth, he’s learned when to pipe up and when to shut up.

It had been a perfect trip to that point. I’d driven from DC to Ohio, picked up my dad at his retirement community, and driven us both to Canada in his car. The small backyard wedding in Toronto – my daughter’s, his granddaughter’s – was lovely as a wedding could be. The next day, Dad and I hit the road for Stratford, Ontario, and the Shakespeare festival. Now we were leaving Stratford, heading to Michigan to see old friends before driving back to Ohio.

I had insisted on being the sole driver for the week-long trip. Dad loves to drive, but I laid out all kinds of reasons why that wasn’t a good idea, and he had graciously acceded to my wishes. Now I was covered with shame.

Soon the parked car’s owner appeared. A professional dog walker, with one of his charges on a leash, he was preternaturally calm. Maybe it’s a Canadian thing? We exchanged information and he said he’d be in touch with an estimate for fixing the dent.

The risk of road accidents, large or small, is one of the reasons Bill and I usually prefer to fly. Dad, on the other hand, detests air travel and revels in the open road. His idea of a vacation was formed in the 1950s, when our family drove all over New England and the Canadian Maritimes, pitching our tent in campgrounds or on Forest Service lands. Those experiences may have something to do with our different travel habits today.

“Just throw everything in the back”

Conditioned by years of flying, I consolidate everything in as few bags as possible. For our Canada road trip, I had a week’s worth of necessities tightly stowed in a rolling carry-on and a small backpack. My purse held my wallet, our passports and vaccine cards, and paperwork for entering Canada.

My bags packed and ready, I glanced toward the door. Dad’s suitcase and a cooler were topped by a heap of loose jackets, hats, umbrellas, bags, books, magazines, CDs, and water bottles. “Um, Dad – don’t you want to organize that stuff a little bit?” He was perplexed. “But why? Just throw it all in the back of the car, Cathy!”

I recalled our 1950s camping trips: the old Plymouth station wagon piled high, with a canvas army surplus tent strapped to the roof. “That tent had no floor and no screening,” Dad recalled, “so in New Brunswick we were at the mercy of mosquitos the size of airplanes.” There were folding army cots, sleeping bags, a Coleman stove, bottled gas, lanterns, an icebox, a food box, and, in the early years, the “kiddie coop,” a portable crib where they stashed me while they sipped whiskey out of tin camping mugs and my mother heated Dinty Moore beef stew on the Coleman stove for supper.

Packing for the road, August 1955. This may have been the first camping trip they took me on, to New Brunswick, Canada, when I was 22 months old. The two cocker spaniels, Nicky and Polly, came along too.

“Turn that goddamn thing off!”

Leaving Ohio, the next point of dispute was whether we would be joined in the car by a third party, whom Dad called The Lady. I tapped our Toronto destination into GoogleMaps and snapped the phone to its dashboard mount. The Lady began broadcasting directions. “Cathy, turn that goddamn thing off!” exclaimed Dad. “You don’t need that. Just get on 90!” On his solo drives from Ohio to New England in recent years, he would pick up I-90 east and drive a route he knew by heart. I pointed out that neither of us knew the way to Toronto.

GPS wasn’t around when Dad’s love affair with driving began. He did have voice navigation, though, in the form of my mother, sitting beside him with a paper map. They used gas station road maps and, in wilderness areas, Geological Survey topo maps. If knowing the route, reading a map, and following road signs didn’t suffice, there was always the last resort: rolling down the window and asking for directions.

I wasn’t down with any of that. If I’m driving an unfamiliar route, I want GoogleMaps. I let Dad know it was my way or no highway. And as the days passed, a funny thing happened: Dad made friends with The Lady. As her calm voice guided us through the snarl of freeways around Toronto and later Detroit, he developed a grudging respect: “Just do what she says. I trust The Lady.”

At the Wolverine brewery in Ann Arbor, Michigan. After waiting two hours to clear US immigration at the Blue Water Bridge between Ontario and Michigan, we both needed a drink.

A shared love of the road

There were things we agreed on. Lunch was one. No McDonald’s for us, only packed sandwiches from a cooler, eaten by the roadside in the 1950s and at highway service plazas today. And musicals. We listened to Kiss Me Kate, Oklahoma, and Oliver! And other tunes too: it turns out Dad loves the Dixie Chicks. Who knew?

And though we stayed in Airbnbs this time, we both have camping in our blood. I asked Dad, why not stay in a motel? He scoffed. “My God, who would stay in a motel when you could camp? To spend what a motel cost – in those days probably 10 bucks – we didn't have that kind of money. And we liked being out in the woods. Today I would do the same thing if I were a little younger.”

I can’t turn back the clock for either of us, but I’m happy to road-trip almost anywhere. And I’ll be more careful backing up the car next time.

Enough on the drive. What about the wedding?

Oh yeah! Some of you will have been waiting for this. Here you go.