We're all waiting rather impatiently for my dad and Richie to return to Casa Barnes. For one thing, they got to see Chicago and our grandparents. For another, they took our brand-new Toyota Camry with them, which means I have to drive my dad's old Chevy pickup to work. Oh, and we miss them like crazy, of course.
Now, for our family, driving to Illinois and back is not out of the ordinary. For as long as I can remember, we've taken road trips. When I was a baby my parents drove from Iowa to Maine, going up through Canada for at least some of the journey. I know of at least one occasion when I was about seven when we drove from Massachusetts, where we lived then, to Wisconsin, where my parents would be attending a conference. We often drove from Massachusetts to Pennsylvania to see my titi (that's Puerto Rican for aunt - tía is very formal there) and her family. When we moved to Costa Rica for a year, we put our things in storage at my uncle's house in Maine, and when we moved to California, we set out the following summer to get our things. By car.
That was also the trip when I walked straight into a tree at the Grand Canyon, but I'd rather not discuss it.
So, as you can see, both from the map above and my own account, road trips are nothing new for la familia Barnes-González. Our most recent one as an entire family was last summer, as a matter of fact. I was moving to college and had about six boxes of stuff to bring with me. So into the Suburban we got. I liked that trip especially because I got to do about a third of the driving, and we had some excellent stops along the way; we spent a couple of days near Kansas City, and I got to see the hospital where I was born and where my parents had gone to seminary; we watched Half-Blood Prince at a theatre in Des Moines before continuing on to the little Iowa town where I had spent the first four years of my life; and we had a lovely dinner with Ellen Brown in Ohio. Then we had the longest drive ever (or at least it felt like it) to my titi's town in Pennsylvania - we didn't get there until about three in the morning.
You'll notice, however, that the states I haven't been to are concentrated in two major areas: the Southeast and the Northwest. I'm rather hoping that going to college in Virginia will help me take care of the South, especially as I'm hoping to do beach week in North Carolina at one point. I'd love to see Georgia properly; technically, I've only been to the airport in Atlanta, which really shouldn't count, but I also like to say I've been to South America when I've technically only been to airport in Caracas, Venezuela. So I'm counting Georgia (and Kentucky, where I've only been to the Cincinnati-Covington airport) anyway. I'm also dying to see New Orleans - it sounds like such a wonderful place, even post-Katrina.
Now, as for the Northwest... I really don't know when I'll get to see any of that. I haven't even been to most of Northern California; I've never been to San Francisco (although I'm trying to change that this summer) or Berkeley. In fact, the farthest north I've been (in California) is a small town called Ceres, very close to Modesto (which is where George Lucas grew up, by the way). One of these days I'm going to have to convince my parents to take a trip to Washington, just so I can knock another couple of states off my list. I've not been to Alaska or Hawaii either, but I'm thinking that seeing them anytime soon is probably a longshot. Hey, I've been to Puerto Rico at least five times, so I'm not complaining.
So there you have it! A very abridged history of Barnes Family road trips. Has anyone been to all 50 states? All of the lower forty-eight? Just the state you were born in? Let me know!
