This is a guest post, written by my father, Jim Barefoot. He doesn’t have a blog, a book, or a website, but he does love to travel! He is a retired CPA/CEO, a respected citizen of my hometown, Bedford, Virginia, and a United States Army Veteran. He grew up in Dunn, North Carolina. He has four children and three grandchildren, and has devoted his life to my mom, and to providing for our needs, as well as an abundance of experiences and great memories … many of which include travel. My Mom and Dad recently celebrated their 51st wedding anniversary, and I am lucky to be blessed with such great parents.
During our recent road trip, I asked Dad if he’d like to write a post together. We each agreed to write a few tips for a father-daughter road trip. So this is the first of our two-part road-trip series. Hope you enjoy his tender humor. I’ve kept his words just as they were written on the sheets of his yellow legal pad.
For A Six-Day Auto Trip With Your Adult Daughter:
1. Make sure she really likes to travel long distances and long hours. We drove one day 14 hours, 600 plus miles. Tired but no complaints. We had to find a motel at 9:00 at night.
2. Make careful driving a top priority. She drives a little faster than I do but is a good driver. She hit the rumble strip on the side of the interstate three times. I told her “Four times and you are out,” kidding, of-course. Traveling in the summer on any road is frustrating with all the repair going on. In Indiana we were held up for 2 1/2 hours and when we got to the repair sight there was one man with a concrete saw in his hand. He was creating such a dust until they just stopped 2 lanes of traffic on the interstate.
3. Appreciate what is along the way. For 2 days through Western Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Eastern Iowa ~ nothing but cornfields and soybeans. She saw the beauty of corn tassels in long rows and contoured with the changing elevation of the fields. usually tucked away in the middle of the huge field was a farm house and varying shapes and sizes of barns. With a long-range lens on her husband’s new camera she took dozens of pictures of barns rising out of the cornfields. Now comes the task of deleting the unwanted ones. I think that will be harder than she thinks. Maybe like losing part of her soul.
4. Most people when traveling wear shorts or slacks ~ not my Jane ~ long flowing skirts. Out thru the woods she goes making pictures of wildflowers and buffalo in Yellowstone. It’s a joy to see the ‘I’ll do it my way’ attitude.
5. Where do we eat? Special consideration must be applied when diet is such an important part of health issues. heating food in the car with a pot connected to the cigarette lighter outlet sounds good in theory, but didn’t prove to be very practical. Blew a fuse so no radio for the trip. Eating the right food is essential but hard to find the right ones on the road sometimes. Be very flexible when choosing places to eat.
6. Silence. Agree before you travel that it is o.k. to ride long periods of time without speaking. Just enjoying the scenery and nobody is offended.
7. Thank God every day for a daughter who will take off a week from work and accompany an old guy way past his prime on a 2500 mile trip. I love you.
Well, as you can see my dad is a sweetheart, and is an awesome travel partner … always itching for another trip. He’s an old fashioned guy, but I’ll share your comments with him, and maybe he’ll respond to some of them.
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