If Juneau\u2019s road ends less than 50 miles outside town, how is it my odometer reads 123,642?<\/p>\n
Actually, we\u2019re a two-vehicle family \u2014 again, in a place where the road ends less than 50 miles outside town. The car we \u201cdon\u2019t\u201d drive tops 120,000, too.<\/p>\n
Exactly where has all this mileage taken me? Everywhere. And nowhere. I find myself circling the same endless loop, a Gordian knot of drop-offs and pick-ups: school, then the other school with the slightly different bell schedule, then whatever it is I do when I\u2019m not chauffeuring; then, in the afternoon, both schools again, then home for clothes change \u2014 because every extra-curricular activity involves a different special outfit, too expensive to risk sending to school; then activity A, then activity B, then back to activity A because someone left part of their expensive special outfit, etc. Of course, there\u2019s the occasional spur trip to Costco or someplace more exotic \u2026 say, Foodland. Every once in a while, I\u2019ll be dispatched on a midnight run all the way to Safeway for lice shampoo or Kaopectate or something. That\u2019s always exciting.<\/p>\n
But gas and lube expenditures notwithstanding, I\u2019m at peace with all this driving; in fact, I\u2019ve even grown to like it.<\/p>\n
Some societies mark coming-of-age with the successful completion of a challenge, for example, hunting and killing an animal or, as with my tribe, chanting from a scroll followed by a catered luncheon.<\/p>\n
While culturally I became a man at age 13 \u2014 before returning, two days later, to seventh grade \u2014 I didn\u2019t start acting like an adult until my late 30s \u2026 and only because my children forced me to.<\/p>\n
See, nothing makes a person feel more grown up than tooling around in a car full of kids \u2014 not plucking grays, paying life insurance premiums or taking Prilosec. Muscle cars, convertibles, a crazy homemade Frankentruck with massive spotlights and a built-in gun mount? Child\u2019s play. It takes a real man (or woman) to drive a sensible crossover SUV with multiple booster seats, just as it takes a real man (or woman) to play along with an extended game of \u201cbaby\u201d such that several of those booster seats are occupied by American Girl dolls, whether your daughter\u2019s riding along or not.<\/p>\n
Another perk: no matter the destination \u2014 even just soccer practice, yet again \u2014 when you\u2019re at the wheel, you\u2019re the captain. For those miles, and possibly those miles alone, you control your family\u2019s destiny. You also decide whether or not to stop for donuts (a key bargaining chip). And you choose the music. Word of advice: a good captain makes the crew happy, so every once in a while cue up the soundtrack from \u201cHamilton.\u201d Nothing quashes a backseat mutiny like the soundtrack from \u201cHamilton.\u201d<\/p>\n
Of course, driving with kids \u2014 without driving yourself nuts \u2014 entails embracing chaos. And mess. Growing up, the interior of my dad\u2019s car was so clean you could eat off it, most likely because we weren\u2019t even allowed to chew gum in there. My car, by contrast, is strewn with Cheerios, cheese sticks, cheddar goldfish, PB&J crusts, sand-encrusted fruit roll-ups, half-consumed juice boxes, and, I\u2019ll admit, more than a few of my own old Snapple bottles. But you can\u2019t pee into a juice box the way you can a Snapple bottle, so, you know, they\u2019re for emergencies.<\/p>\n
But even I reach my limits. The other day, our car started to smell, and I mean like death. The culprit: a putrid banana underneath the floor mat protector. (Nice job, floor mat protector; letting a whole banana slip past\u2014I\u2019d hardly call that \u201cprotection.\u201d) You know what wasn\u2019t helping, either? A bag of wet clothes from the beach this past June, festering away in the spare tire well (don\u2019t ask how it got there; I\u2019ve learned not to).<\/p>\n
Luckily I honed my deodorizing skills back in college\u2014thank you very much, designated driver duty. Now the car smells like pina coladas, fitting, considering how often I get caught in the rain.<\/p>\n
Point is, I\u2019d rather light a candle than curse the darkness (although, actually, I\u2019d rather do both \u2014 candle-lit swearing totally crushes).<\/p>\n
Fine. So you can\u2019t take a road trip out of Juneau that doesn\u2019t involve a leg at sea; so your routes are so familiar you can drive them with your eyes closed (legal disclaimer: do not drive with your eyes closed); so you never use cruise control, even though it\u2019s your favorite button to press, aside from windshield washer fluid, which, fortunately you get to press all the time.<\/p>\n
These are small prices to pay. After all, Juneau is also a place where rush hour \u201ctraffic\u201d lasts 15 minutes, tops. And where else can you pull over on the way to jiu-jitsu to watch orcas breach in the channel?<\/p>\n
Plus, it could be worse. I mean, we could be talking about air travel.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u2022 Geoff Kirsch is an award-winning Juneau-based writer and humorist. \u201cSlack Tide\u201d appears every second and fourth Sunday.<\/b><\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
If Juneau\u2019s road ends less than 50 miles outside town, how is it my odometer reads 123,642? Actually, we\u2019re a two-vehicle family \u2014 again, in a place where the road ends less than 50 miles outside town. The car we \u201cdon\u2019t\u201d drive tops 120,000, too. Exactly where has all this mileage taken me? Everywhere. And […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":7,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-9326","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9326","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9326"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9326\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9326"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=9326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}