The years had dimmed our memories of travelling with our children. (We’d forgotten all the potty stops and car-sick kids.) But taking our five and eight year-old grandchildren for a trip west sounded delightful. We had a large station wagon and we rotated our seating. The one beside grandpa was first on everyone’s list, including mine after I spent an hour of colouring spaceships with my grandson.
Menus included everything but chocolate chip cookies, which I had the misfortune of supplying on a previous trip. I spent an hour afterwards removing chocolate stains from kids and car seats.
Our stops invariably took place at a campsite, often where other children were playing, and after 10 minutes I had a few problems convincing the grandchildren that we really had to leave. I had forgotten how quickly little ones make friends.
Each child had a “sleep mate”, which gave them a sense of home, but their biggest delight was the Magic Suitcase. I had stuffed it with 10 different play activities and they knew that each hour of the trip there would be something new in the suitcase for them. Games like Snakes and Ladders and Fish kept them amused, and my daughter’s Barbie doll and wardrobe kept our granddaughter occupied, while our grandson constructed weird and wonderful apparatuses with a construction set.
Today, I suppose they would be bent over some kind of video game or glued to a movie on a laptop computer, but I have great memories of them waiting expectantly as the Magic Suitcase was opened to reveal another mysterious activity.
That trip was full of song from their Dad’s Beatles album, which they had memorized and sang lustily. It was also filled with one disappointment.
When we arrived at our destination and took our luggage out of the van, the children were most upset. Like most of us adults have learned .a good time only lasts so long … and they had had a wonderful time but alas, they were heartbroken to find … the Magic Suitcase was now empty.
Originally printed in 1991 in the Triple E RV Adventure Club Magazine.
