My American Vacation

When I think back on my most memorable road trip, it doesn’t start with the destination. It starts in my driveway, with a car that absolutely refused to cooperate and a lesson I should’ve learned by then: never touch anything right before a family vacation.

The night before we left, I decided to clean and detail my beautiful new company car, a huge blue Oldsmobile Delta 88. The thing looked like an FBI car. Big, smooth, impressive. Somewhere under the dashboard, while detailing the car the day before, I must’ve knocked loose a very important wire. The next morning with the car fully loaded, with Marmie ready to go and three teenage daughters already impatient, I turned the key and got nothing. Dead silence. So instead of heading north in style, we piled into Marmie’s much smaller, well-used Ford Tempo. The Delta stayed home, spotless and useless, mocking me from the driveway.

We left from our home outside Philadelphia and headed north to Corning, New York, which in my mind was a brilliant first stop. The Corning Glass Factory was a dream destination for an antique glass collector and dealer that I was. I was fascinated. My three teenage daughters well, not so much. I don’t think we were ten minutes inside before I realized Dad had badly misread the room. I was admiring craftsmanship and history. They were counting the minutes and silently questioning my judgment. With Marmie looking at me like “it’s OK Clark, you tried.

From there we drove on to Watkins Glen, which helped restore a little balance with the girls for about three minutes at least. Fresh air, waterfalls, cliffs, and enough walking to burn off some teenage frustration. That goodwill carried us just far enough to Niagara Falls, which even the most unimpressed teenager has trouble dismissing. The roar, the mist, the sheer power of it all reminded everyone why we bothered to pack the car in the first place. We all piled back in the little Tempo soaking wet.

Somewhere along the way, my youngest spilled milk in the back seat. Not a little spill. A full-scale milk disaster. The smell settled in and never left. For the rest of the trip, the car smelled like warm dairy and river water. To this day, one whiff of sour milk takes me right back to that back seat.

We crossed into Canada next and made our way to the capital, staying at the Château Laurier, which briefly restored my credibility as a vacation planner. The next day we watched Canada’s Changing of the Guard held on Parliament Hill in Ottawa featuring soldiers in scarlet uniforms and bearskin hats performing drills to military music, honouring Canadian history and military precision for the public. We also traveled on to Toronto and Quebec. In Toronto we visited the underground Malls were I actually got a “this is cool” from one of my daughters. Toronto is also where I almost managed to get myself detained in a foreign country. A homeless guy started taunting my daughters, and I was one poor decision away from making things worse when the police calmly informed me that if I touched him, I’d be quarantined for ten days. That was all the motivation I needed to suddenly become very patient.

On the way home, we were stopped at the U.S. border and searched. I had bought an antique Persian rug in Toronto, and the rules at the time did not favor spontaneous antique purchases. The rug was confiscated, I got a citation and a fine, and we all learned a lesson none of us asked for.

This was all in the 1990s, back when road trips were longer, maps were paper, and every mistake had to be lived with in real time. It wasn’t smooth, quiet, or easy. It smelled bad, involved the wrong car, bored teenagers, missed expectations, and a confiscated rug. But it was memorable in the way that only family road trips can be. Messy, loud, imperfect, and completely ours.