Extreme travel in wintry America: How one family survived a Fomo-fuelled vacation

In a moment of madness, I decided to take the family on a coast-to-coast trip in the United States this December.

What was I thinking? It did not occur to me, when I made the bookings, that I was sentencing myself to 12 consecutive days of extreme family travel in nasty winter conditions.

The romantic in me thought that it would be great to show my younger son S, who is 17, the country where my wife and I went to graduate school. S had lived there as a young child for several years when we were working or studying there, and had not been back since. The trip was a chance to show him the country anew, now that he is older.

Some might say it is a great idea. Almost two weeks on the road together. Extraordinary experiences. Gorgeous sights and sounds. An exploration of the land of the free, with lots of quintessential American dining delights.

We would indulge in the romance of family travel. Spend time together. Laugh. Talk. Eat.

But it turned out to be too many hours huddled shoulder to shoulder in tiny airplane seats with our bags, computers and heavy winter jackets. Seated with babies screaming and chucking Cheerios at my feet, alongside sniffling unmasked passengers, made me wish on numerous occasions that I had booked a beach holiday nearer home.

Where were the leisurely drives where we would bask in golden wintry sunlight? What about those moments when my wife's eyes would sparkle as I sped along American freeways to our next family adventure?

In reality, there is something about winter that sucks energy from humans. Even loving family members transmogrify into petty, snarling ogres in the cold.

Driving in pitch darkness except for the car's headlights and arriving late in a city turned me into just such an ogre, of the Uber-driver-from-hell variety.

Once, in the middle of the trip, we were stressed, hungry and tired when we were bundled into our rental car. As I drove, someone would navigate using my phone's GPS. When we missed an important exit at a busy intersection, I lost my temper and grabbed my phone back.

Suddenly, the mood in an already cold car plummeted to Arctic levels. While I apologised for my behaviour after the incident, I had drawn first blood and no one's eyes were sparkling that night.

It did not help that I decided to book us into hotel rooms with two queen beds instead of reserving two rooms. But I had figured that with our older son, R, serving his national service, it might make sense to save a few dollars by sharing rooms throughout the trip.

Of course, I did not think about how individuals would cope with jet lag differently. With different members of the family up at all hours of the night, tapping furiously at the computer or on the phone, how could anyone get a restful night's sleep?

Maybe I thought that after 23 years of marriage, it was time to give the marriage a real test. Living out of a suitcase for two weeks. Wake-up alarms at 4am to catch early flights, followed by long difficult drives. What an appropriate test.

Like a game of marital Jenga, I seemed intent to see how much I could load into the trip before it came crashing down.

The trip had us flying from San Francisco to Boston, followed by a six-day road trip from Boston to Montreal, and down to Pittsburgh. From Pittsburgh, we would fly back to San Francisco to catch the flight back home.

Flying 10,000km on domestic flights and driving 1,500km on the road trip showed just how much the family indulged my madness.

Like a travel planner on too much caffeine, I busily added restaurants and attractions to an ever-expanding list of to-dos for the trip.

I had an extreme case of Fomo (Fear Of Missing Out). This was the first time back in the US as a family since we left in 2008, and there was so much I wanted to show my son.

Using the excuse of fuelling my teenager's metabolism, I jammed American food experiences down his throat as quickly as I could think of them.

I wanted to be there when my son tried the American-Chinese classic, General Tso's chicken, for the first time. In-And-Out burgers, greasy diner breakfasts of hotcakes and sausage, steakhouses, BBQ smokehouses - the eating list kept expanding, matched only by the centimetres on my waistline. Using the excuse of fuelling the writer's teenager's metabolism, the writer jammed American food experiences down his son's throat as quickly as I could think of them.

I was unrelenting. Dragging a helpless teenager and the reluctant wife to do more, more, and yet more. The exhortation that "you can't do/eat this in Singapore" could go only so far before feet, backs and stomachs collectively gave out.

The Jenga tower of our US trip would eventually crumble somewhere between upstate New York and Pittsburgh under too many kilometres, too many activities and too much food.

On a long drive one day, S suddenly suggested that we take a two-night break in the middle of nowhere, Buffalo in New York state. It was not the request of a rebellious teenager, just quiet weariness. He was like an exhausted pugilist, raising his hands in surrender after going too many rounds in the ring.

The request jolted me out of my Fomo-induced stupor. We stopped in Buffalo.

Some time during those three days in Buffalo, a sense of peace returned to our family and we were finally on vacation.

Perhaps it happened during the visit to the Niagara Falls State Park, where we watched the falls hurtle over the precipice at one of the natural wonders of the world, with hardly a soul around us.

During our time in Buffalo, spontaneous laughter and easy conversation returned to the family. It probably had nothing to do with the freshly made ice cream that was consumed or the retail therapy at a nearby factory outlet, but they could not have hurt.

The conversations on the drives after the stop in Buffalo were the most meaningful of the trip.

We discussed deep matters unhurriedly, such as the greatest influences on our lives and some of our biggest regrets. These topics are not usually broached in day-to-day family business, but seemed natural to discuss as we passed time while driving.

The drives also helped me appreciate my son's eclectic tastes in music more deeply. He curated our road-trip playlist with jazz, folk, electronic digital music and hard rock selections. Not once did I hear anything that could be described as a contemporary pop song, and I did not recognise most of the artistes that he selected for our enjoyment.

When I was a boy, my mother would say that "travel is education of the eyes". During this US trip, I made a special journey to the Randy Pausch Memorial Bridge in Carnegie Mellon University. The bridge in Pittsburgh has much meaning for me as it was built to celebrate the life of an extraordinary "Virtual Reality Professor" at the university.

Pausch achieved global fame when he delivered his last lecture with only 10 months to live before succumbing to cancer. In the lecture, available on YouTube where it has notched 21 million views, he shared his secret to achieving childhood dreams while paying tribute to family and mentors.

Also memorable was a visit to Tartine Bakery in San Francisco. Owned by sourdough bread baker Chad Robertson, his establishment was immensely popular during the global pandemic when locked-down people everywhere sought new experiences at home. My wife, too, started baking and has not stopped since.

On our last day in the US, we made a beeline for the bakery. The half loaf that we were planning to take home to Singapore was picked over hungrily, while waiting for our sandwiches that were perfect and worth the 20-person queue.

At the end of the trip, S told us that he wanted to pursue his undergraduate studies in the US and that the visit had given him a deeper understanding of what he wanted to do with his life.

It appears that out of irritation, ill temper and overeating, there can still be deep conversation, spontaneous laughter and a love that can emerge only after it has been forged in the furnace of extreme family travel.

Source: The Straits Times