FAMILY TIES Road-Tripping with Mom
“Nine days... on the road... with your mom? I couldn’t do that,” my coworker said. “My mom drives me nuts after just a few hours.” It was early May, and in a couple of weeks I would embark on a road trip from North Carolina to Colorado. The passengers: me (39) and my mother, Terry (70). The plan: cover ground quickly to Colorado, then take the week wandering around the Centennial State.
“We travel really well together,” I said, waving off my coworker.
This wasn’t exactly true.
My mom and I used to go on road trips a lot. We had a simple setup: her Subaru and some clothes, camping gear, a red cooler that will probably outlive both of us, and a road atlas. During my 20s, she and I spent summers driving cross-country from our home state of North Carolina to places like California, Wyoming, Montana, Maine, and the Keys.
At first glance, our journeys looked like the ideal “mother–daughter trips”—the kind you’d see on TV: singing along to Carole King on the
