They roared their terrible roars

“…they roared their terrible roars, and gnashed their terrible teeth, and rolled their terrible eyes, and showed their terrible claws!” Maurice Sendak

Traveling for the holidays is just around the corner for many of us, and we all know what a joy that can be, but sometimes just getting there is the easy part. The fun starts when you decide to fill that holiday time away with as many “special” experiences as you can to make sure that this is the trip to top all trips - the one we’ll talk about for years to come…

Let’s face it, that’s a lot of pressure. Are you really going to outdo that first view of the Grand Canyon? Or the ride on the San Francisco cable car? Or even the visit to the world’s largest ball of twine? The chances are that you’re in for a disappointment, because in truth, the best memories are the ones that happen on the spur-of-the-moment, unplanned and unscripted. If you’re really lucky, you might be able to combine the search for the perfect moment with serendipity, which is what happened to my family this Thanksgiving.

First, a quantifier: I believe the search for the perfect moment differs exponentially depending on whether you’re traveling with kids or without. I suffer from the malady that strikes many people when they have kids - the need to overlay educational moments within any trip that is farther than, say, 20 blocks from your home. In the past I have been known to detour an otherwise straightforward zip down I-77 with a side venture to something like the final resting place of the dirigible “Shenandoah” or the “Big Musky Bucket” (whatever that is), even if it means driving two hours out of the way down the kind of unpaved and unmarked roads that send GPS into mute acquiescence. Is there a Civil War battlefield within 120 miles of our planned route? I’m there, baby, dragging catatonic kids to walk the rolling fields of Chickamauga, or climb the airless peaks of Kennesaw Mountain. On the other hand, if I’m traveling with just my wife, I can be perfectly happy to find a quiet retreat or expansive beach and just plop down and pull out my latest book. Bliss is often associated with inactivity in this case, and restfulness trumps revelation.

The challenge really comes when these two aspirations collide, hence Thanksgiving 2010. My little family decided to travel to the home of my sister and her husband outside of Lexington, Virginia, this November. They have a beautiful farm nestled between mountain ranges a good half an hour out into the wilderness from downtown Lexington. When I go there, I always think of one thing: relaxation. Sure, Lexington is a very historic town, the home of Stonewall Jackson, the final resting place of Robert E. Lee, home to two noted colleges (Washington and Lee University and Virginia Military Institute). It also has a thriving music and arts subculture; with something for everyone, it’s an ideal family vacation. But my sister has lived there a long time, and eventually visiting the grave of Lee’s horse, “Traveler,” starts to lose its luster, and sitting by the wood stove, dreamily reading back issues of The New Yorker appears to be as close to paradise as one can hope for. But no sooner had I put my feet up and started to snore lightly than I was disturbed by my sister regaling the 9-year old with tales of the wild animal safari park a few miles down the road. Immediately alarm bells began to ring in my drooping head. Little girls and big fuzzy animals! Ix-nay on the ark-pay! We already have a full schedule planned for the week! This was not on the radar screen.

Too late… before I knew it, our trip was being extended an extra day and a “safari adventure” was being planned. I knew resistance was futile, but I demanded one concession - that my thoughtful sister must accompany us as penance for bringing the whole thing up in the first place. Soon we found ourselves packed in my new Rav4 and heading to the “other” Lexington, a land of fiberglass dinosaurs, wax museums, an art installation named “Foam-Henge” (don’t ask), and restaurants painted electric pink. We entered the animal park through its faux-tribal arch, where a nice young attendant collected buckets of cash from us in exchange for four buckets of animal feed and our admission fees. A tiny voice inside my head said, “Huh, so this place actually allows you to feed the animals; I wonder how that works….” Then before I knew it, a stronger voice inside my head said, “Wait, we’re not allowed out of the car, we will have to feed them through open windows…” Then a LOUD voice (apparently it was mine) hollered, “Hold the buckets OUTSIDE the windows! Oh my [bleep], where did all these llamas come from!?”

There are few moments in life that can compare to having a full grown bison stick its head inside your car from one side, while a naughty zebra goes for the feedbag from another. As I watched in abject horror, food pellets, clumps of fur, saliva, and other unidentifiable secretions were sprayed around, inside, and on top of my new car! Everyone else in our car laughed uproariously throughout the assault until they were gasping for breath and, if truth be told, being that up close and personal with a gnu was pretty fun. But my mind could only focus on one thought - escape! My initial reaction was to hit the gas and leave the llamas and other large mammals in the dust, but hitting a wildebeest full-on with my little car was an even less pleasant prospect than getting slimed, so I soldiered on. As we moved further into the park I tried to hide my glee as the feed buckets were snatched away or dumped one-by-one (all over my seats, of course) by the wily critters until there was no more reason for them to hang around.

If you ask my family members, the hour or so we spent on safari that day was one of the most memorable ever. The photos and movies seem to back this up, as we created our own version of Where the Wild Things Are. And as for me, well, I’ll have the memories for a good, long, time; food pellets fermenting in my window wells, unaccounted-for stains and stickiness throughout my leather interior, and a nice little scratch in my car’s roof line from one very aggressive elk! Who was the one getting educated by this “special” travel experience anyway???

May you and yours have a warm and wonderful holiday season!