Last week marked our annual summer vacation—kind of. While I will never forget it, at times it seemed way more like work than fun. My daughter is a rising senior and we spent the week doing college tours in the Northeast. We ended up driving 2,327 miles in six days. Did I mention, I’m not really a road-trip fan?
We had a very ambitious schedule. On the docket were five schools in five days, covering two states and one in Canada. I honestly don’t know what the hell we were thinking.
We started in Kentucky and drove 10 hours to Pennsylvania the first day to be ready for a tour the next morning. We started strong and full of enthusiasm largely in part to breakfast at the Waffle House. We then walked our asses off on a very hilly campus. Our tour guide did a bit of trauma dumping, as my daughter called it. He told us the reason he chose this particular school was because it was as far as he could go to get away from his strict parents. He was from California. I made Josie promise she would never choose a school just to get away from us.
After this tour, we hopped into the family truckster and headed across Pennsylvania for tour number two. This one was a bust. Josie disliked the school immediately. Oh, well. Better to know now. Time to head to New York.
We spent the next two days in the same city seeing two different schools. We really liked the city and both of the schools exceeded our expectations. However, at this point, we were tired and sore and it was starting to feel a bit like the movie Groundhog Day. And we were not done. Up next, Canada!
This may be where we lost our minds. The drive was a bitch. It took us more than two hours to drive 20 miles to get into the city. Oh, how I needed to pee!
The tour was exciting. It was by far the biggest school we toured. There were lots of international students there, which Josie loved. After nearly four hours of tours, we stopped at a Turkish food truck and ate lunch outside. It was delish.
The drive back to New York was equally as painful. Luckily New York-style pizza was what was for dinner. At the restaurant was a police officer. My husband decided to engage him with questions about the safety of the city. Apparently, our restaurant choice had great pizza but was in a bad part of town. “Just up that way, it’s all drugs and prostitution,” the officer said pointing. Great. He did go on to say that both of the schools we had visited were very safe. There’s some good news.
On the morning before we left my husband procured some excellent bagels and we sat around the table and recapped the trip. It was a lot. So much to think about and so many decisions to make. Some parts of each tour kind of ran together. We managed to laugh at the silly stuff and knew the crazy-filled week we had just experienced was one we would never forget.
Then we got in the car and drove another 10 fucking hours home. The things we do for our kids.
Angela Traver
What is this blog about? Well, it's a general blog, but it is also a very specific blog. If you get that reference, you get a gold star! I have been a public relations professional and writer of press releases for more than 20 years—primarily in the booze biz. I decided to do some writing for fun and embrace the humor that gets me through most days. Hopefully it will make you chuckle—or at least smile. I’m a certified crazy magnet, and more than a little nutty myself, so buckle up. Also, I have two vices—profanity and red wine/whiskey. You’ve been warned. It should also be noted, that I’m a HUGE Bob & Sheri fan. I’ve been a listener for more than 20 years. This opportunity is a dream come true and it may have made me cry. That being said, I cry at everything. If you are into booze, dogs, food and/or knitting, hit me up on Instagram, Facebook or Twitter (although I’m terrible at Twitter and it scares me) @kyspiritsgal. You can also find all my previous blog posts at www.kyspiritsgal.com.
