Road Trippin’

I recently spent a week with my grandson. We traveled to Oregon to visit his friend and to tour a few colleges. To be exact, he spent a LOT of time visiting his friend and I researched schools, no tours were taken. While we were gone, he celebrated turning 16 and I did not celebrate turning 71.

It’s been a minute since I spent that much time up close and personal with a teenager. These are my humble observations:

It was a wonderful trip. Oregon is beautiful. Traveling for a hundred miles along the Columbia River was simply breathtaking. I’m so glad we got to experience those sights together…kinda. I would point out the wonders, he would look up from his phone, acknowledge the beauty with a slight head nod, then return to his phone…for four solid hours coming and going. (Had I been in the passenger seat, I would have gotten a good 3 hours sleep each way.) Suffice it to say, neither of us are cut out for over-the-road-trucking.

Between him wearing Airpods continuously, and me not wearing my Airpods (aka hearing aids), we are both, evidently, deaf.

Our favorite travel game of yore was the license plate game. On our trip, I pointed out every new plate I saw, but he couldn’t hear me so no one made the list. (If anyone cares, I saw Florida, Oklahoma, Washington, Oregon, and Colorado.)

I waaaay underestimated the food budget.

Teenagers and “old people” do not share similar sleep cycles.

Despite our generational differences, it was the trip of a lifetime with one of my favorite people. I can’t wait to go again, but first I have to catch up on my sleep and lose the #^%#^ pounds I gained trying to keeping up with his appetite (no contest there)!