My brother and I joke that were we to have a family motto, it would be “Efficiency Over Comfort”.

Since I was a kid our family has driven to every large family holiday; about 3 times a year we drove from Georgia up the east coast to either Virginia or Pennsylvania depending on the season.  Most of our extended family lives in the northeast, so Fourth of Julys, Thanksgivings, and especially Christmases were always preceded by a 12-hour drive packed into a car.

I remember being really surprised that some of my friends thought this was weird; to me it’s approached something like tradition.  It’s not just the driving, though, it’s the way my family travels: as our so-called motto indicates, it’s all about efficiency.

Efficiency above all, actually.  That means that Dad’s preemptively packed the car the night before (in fact, he even backed it into the garage for easier moving of bags from the house into the trunk), it means we have our meals and snacks planned out and in the fridge for us to toss into a cooler as we leave.  It means that anybody slowing down the speedy progress of bed-to-car at 6am when we leave the house is intensely frowned at.  Intensely.

Said efficiency also applies to your conduct once we’re on the road as well.  We never stopped for a food break – all lunches were taken while driving.  Bodily evacuations occurred whenever we stopped for gas (though an occasional pit stop at a road side rest was not completely unheard of).  Keep yourself occupied, and keep on the road – that’s how we rolled.  Don’t think the trips weren’t fun, though.  Sure, 4 people crammed into a car occasionally get on each others’ nerves, but overall I have fond memories of our drives together.

In the end, even though it’s been awhile since I’ve taken a road trip with my parents (once I got a job after college my trips ended up being shorter, and always via plane) our attitude hasn’t changed.

That’s all for today, y’all!

Mary Gezo

Formerly of both n00bcakes and !Blog, the two magically become one on Spatialdrift; expect some lazy baking and serious nerditude. Also, I love semicolons.