September 2019

Dad & Daughter Travel

For many years as a family of four, we would always go on vacations as a unit. When my son went to college we started to do the occasional vacation with just me, my wife & daughter. He wasn’t, and still isn’t, much of a traveler. On the other hand, my daughter Carly, is pretty much game to go anywhere.

As her 21st birthday approached I wanted to do something special travel-wise with her and my wife. Carly was going through a granola eating, earth connecting and hiking phase. None of us had been to the Rockies or the Grand Canyon, so I planned a trip taking us to Phoenix first. We would drive to the Grand Canyon. Then over to Sedona and back to Phoenix to fly to Denver and finish in Boulder, Colorado with another hike.

I booked all the flights and hotels and was getting excited about this family trip out West. Unfortunately as timing had it, my wife’s illness was starting to become symptomatic. She definitely wasn’t going to be able to handle climbing or hiking around the Grand Canyon.

I was ready to pull the plug on the whole trip and try to plan something special for my daughter closer to home. However, my wife, being the unselfish woman she was, insisted we still go. I got the old “don’t worry about me, I’ll be just fine.” So with some trepidation and heaviness in my heart, off I went with just my daughter.

The rest of this blog is going to be more visual than story telling. Carly and I have since gone on some other journeys just the two of us. This first trip for her 21st was challenging under the circumstances. The things we saw together however started to heal some wounds and began a more mature phase of a father & daughter relationship.

Subsequent trips after this one were post the passing of my wife and her mom. As you can imagine this brings on a whole new dimension to the relationship once again. There was a lot of pain on both sides. Misunderstanding, hurt, anger. I battled myself trying to be both a father and a mother and always felt like I was letting her down.

So what does this have to do with travel Chris? Well, once again, like my prior posts about the trip to Italy with my friend Joe that put meaning back into my life, the travels with Carly began the healing process for both of us, singularly and together.

Travel is the great neutralizer. You are in a foreign place and are disarmed and less secure. You have to rely on your true self more and can’t hide behind the walls and comforts of home. When conversation gets real, it’s harder to run away. Where can you go? You don’t know this place.

That being said, the rest is quite personal and will stay there. What I do want to share is the joy of traveling with your children when they are adults. Do it if you can. It’s so enlightening to speak with and experience these new things with young adults that you’ve helped create. You learn more about them as they are pushed and challenged in your travels. Seeing different parts of the world we live in with your loved ones is a priceless experience. The bond you can create in those memories will last a lifetime that hopefully they share with their children.

As always, if you’ve come this far…..thank you for reading along. Sunshine always!!