Sometimes when you’re travelling, the route you take and the sights you see along the way come second to the actual journey you are on. That is about the connections you make, the people you visit, the time you take for family and yourself and to just breathe. You learn things about your travelling companions and rekindle affection for distant relatives … it’s so much more than just a holiday.
I took one such “holiday” recently with my family – a trip that was a simple “hello again” in many instances but scarily felt like it might be goodbye in another.
It was planned quite last minute – with summer in full swing and nothing on the calendar yet for time spent seeing our Alberta relatives, we carved out a few days and planned a whirlwind adventure that would encompass both Calgary and Red Deer.
My partner, daughter, stepdaughter and I piled into our truck and began the 13-hour drive to Alberta late one night. We worried that putting a preschooler and a teenager side by side in a back seat – and then together almost 24/7 for the remainder of the trip – may not have been our brightest idea, but other than a few bumps along the way (both literally and figuratively) things worked out OK and the two girls grew closer in a way they never have the chance to at home.
After an all-night drive we spent a bleary-eyed day in Calgary visiting various loved ones, one more night on spare beds and then we were off to Red Deer.
When we arrived, we found out that a family member was very ill, and all plans went out the window. We called home, made arrangements to extend our time away and deleted from our “Must Do” list, instead adding to it things like talk, laugh, reminisce and just be together. Things became slower and simpler over the next several days, and our visit simply became about spending precious time together.
We left Red Deer with many tears and tight hugs, our time together over. It’s unclear how the journey will end, but our time spent on it has resulted in more memories than a holiday ever could.
