Road Trip Day One

Day One
How to take 7 hours to make a 4 hours trip:
After fighting for 45 minutes with the people at Hertz- who seem to have a different definition of ‘reserved” and ‘confirmed’ than we do- we finally settled for a car we hadn’t wanted and left in a righteous huff – only to be called 45 minutes later to say we had left a suitcase and hard to turn around. Two hours later – finally making some progress – we pull off for coffee and see signs for an Estate Sale. Tempting. We drive in circles (and more circles) and finally give up. (Greek teen chorus in the back: Why do you want to buy things from dead people?) But we have been bitten by the shopping bug. How lucky that an hour later we see a big outlet center. The shopping gods are with us! All four of us score big time: Sunglasses, bags, tops. A mere two hour delay. (We won’t mention the cost of all that bargain shopping.) We call the hotel: You know our 3pm check in? Not so much. Finally, at 8:30pm, after dinner, wine and a huge sigh of relief we check in.

2 moms, 2 teens, 1 car, 6 colleges, 7 nights: Road Trip Pre–Planning Session:

Finally booked 6 hotels for the upcoming week-long college road tour.  Spent untold hours trying to balance proximity to campuses, room availability and sliding scale between skeeve and luxe.  I was expecting to feel the love, but only topic of interest to all other concerned parties: Not Ivy vs Non-Ivy, Small vs Large but…road food.  My daughter looked at the itinerary and asked one question: “Can we stop at Costco on the way out of town?”  This from a city girl who has never been to a Costco in her life.  When I asked why she replied that she and her co-teen-traveler, A., want to stock up on king-size bags of junk food for the trip. I pointed out that: 1. We are not exactly going into the desert. I’m sure they have junk food in Providence, Hanover etc.  And 2. King-size bags of junk food?!?!?! Are you kidding me? Then called other mother to go over itinerary and her first response: “I know the best place to get fried chicken in Saratoga Springs!”   Needless to say, no one seemed at all impressed – or even interested – that I had managed to book at least 3 hotels with gyms and indoor pools.  And my advice to bring sneakers? Eye-rolling all around. Do they sell wine at Costco??