Becky and I are just back from two weeks helping our son and his family move from western Missouri where he was stationed as an Air Force chaplain to his new assignment east of Pensacola, Florida. We spent the first week in Missouri preparing for the move and the second week on the move and the first days of settling into a new house. For Becky and me, 2700 miles, nine states and six different hotels. The trip from Missouri to Florida was less ambitious as we crossed southern Missouri, Arkansas, a corner of Tennessee, across Mississippi, another corner of Alabama, and into Florida. 900 miles in three and a half days. Four drivers, four vehicles, and six children, ages 4 to 14. My passengers were 10-year-old Gideon and almost-6-year-old Micah. They were great travelers.
When you are almost 6 years old or already 10 – or if you’re 4 or 14 years old – 300 miles or more can make for a long day. But each travel day held the promise of a hotel pool waiting at journey’s end for those tired pilgrims. We did not hold out the pool as a reward or in any way threaten to forbid its use as a consequence of some bad behavior. Neither reward nor punishment, just the reality of what was at the end of the day, though I did find myself encouraging the almost-6-year-old, especially, by measuring the remainder of the afternoon’s drive in terms of hours or minutes to the hotel pool. Continue reading
