We playfully called it our “Kill the Van” trip. We didn’t know how true that moniker would become.
With two sons heading off to college in the fall, we spent all last spring planning an epic trip Out West, one last “fling” in our 12-passenger van. I researched, planned, and even employed a spreadsheet to keep our itinerary straight. One of the items on our plan included bike riding around the Grand Canyon.
Our First Mistake
Two days before we left, we realized my strategic error. We forgot to teach the baby how to ride a bike. Now, when my “baby,” who is ten, was an actual baby, he had a running bike. But somewhere in there, the rest of his siblings outgrew their bikes or left them in the rain too long, and he never inherited a bike with pedals. And then we forgot about that particular milestone because there were 440 other milestones to be achieved.
I sent my husband and the baby to Walmart to buy a bike he could practice riding. Unfortunately, it rained excessively before we left, so he didn’t get much practice time. In desperation, we strapped the bike to the back of the van and headed out.
Do you know the feeling where you start to sense something isn’t going to go as planned, but you don’t want to believe it yet? I should have known when we got to Dallas, and the friends we planned to stay with came down with strep. We scrambled for a hotel, fed the gang In’ n Out Burger, and told ourselves, “It’s fine. We’re fine. It will all be fine.”
And it was.
Until somewhere between Amarillo and Albuquerque, when the “check engine” light came on.
Change of Plans
My husband found the only Auto Zone for 100 miles and veered off our course. We were actually on Route 66, in a town that could have doubled for Radiator Springs. We purchased an “error light decoder ring” or something and determined that the prognosis for our van was not good.
I got on the phone with the nearest Nissan dealership and employed my southern accent and the desperate voice of a mother of seven to get them to agree to help us the Friday before Memorial Day weekend. This meant another change of plans.
Meanwhile, the baby conquered his bike riding skills after two nights of practicing in hotel parking lots. He finally nailed it in the Tex-Mex restaurant in Albuquerque, right next to the dumpster. Classy boy.
When we left behind our van and rented not one but TWO vehicles, we also left his bicycle behind. That was all the practice he would get before we made it to our first real destination, The Grand Canyon.
As you can imagine, the bike they gave the baby at the canyon was totally different from his bike. It had brakes on the handles and was just a smidge too big for him. He gamely climbed on and wobbled his way to the trail. The rest of my kids careened off, madly pedaling their way around the biggest hole ever in 50 mph winds. At this point, I remembered I’d only recently recovered from 4 broken bones and why in the name of all that was holy had I planned something so dangerous????
I drove like a tiny grandma while the wind whipped us fiercely and picked up my bike a time or two. A bus scared the baby, and he drove off into a ditch (not The Big Ditch, fortunately).
Husband and I were a bit tense with all the near-death experiences circling us, but we managed a few moments of that Sacred Holy when you stare at something wondrous with all of your people beside you. Worth it.
We headed North through Utah toward Colorado. Meanwhile, I fell in love with my rental car and announced my intentions to divorce the van for this tiny SUV with CarPlay capabilities. We also fell in love with the intimacy of traveling by small car in a small group.
Nobody Expects Snow in June
We arrived at our Air BnB in Colorado in a light flurry. No big deal. It’s June 1st tomorrow. Just a bit of moisture…
Pro Tip: When booking lodging, always check the elevation. I inadvertently booked us about 10,000 feet above sea level, where the snow still falls, even in June.
We also had a feverish kid on our hands. Husband took the first shift, and I drove the others down our mountain where it was dry and sunny. We had a marvelous visit to Pike’s Peak, my favorite thing ever. There were no bike rides, somebody else drove us up the mountain, and the view was… breathtaking.
The next day, I took sick kid duty and Husband tried to take the kids to Rocky Mountain National park. The “unusual for this time of year” snow nipped that in the bud, but they took a short hike before returning to the snowy infirmary. They settled for a snowball fight in our yard and later deemed it their favorite thing about the trip.
Pro Tip: Skip the tour bus. Rent a place with a yard and snow.
We returned to New Mexico for our errant van, all fixed up and ready to rumble. I kissed my rental car goodbye, and we headed home. Because we had a sick kid, we had to cancel all other plans and head home. But that wasn’t such a bad thing. We’d accomplished what we set out to do. We’d seen the big ticket items. We’d bonded and laughed and adventured.
And, we really did kill the van, just like we said we would.