#travel

The Joys of Traveling with Children (Over Age 30)

July 12, 2015 By Elaine Ambrose

(Published on VagabondingwithKids July 1, 2015)

Here’s a little levity on the downside of traveling with kids and how best to lie to them when the situation calls for it. This guest piece from Elaine Ambrose originally appeared at The Huffington Post.
If given the choice between traveling with small children and having a root canal, I’d be at the dentist office sucking laughing gas before noon. I adore kids but the logistics of getting them more than 100 miles is too much to endure unless they can be shipped like golf clubs or crated like pets.

After my baby filled his diapers with an adult-strength load during takeoff on a three-hour flight, I finally realized there was no reason to ever travel with youngsters. At least not in the same airplane.

Children under five years old don’t know what a vacation is, so tell them that the city park is just like Disneyland except without grinning pirates shooting guns, drinking booze, and chasing women on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride. Better yet, turn on the sprinklers in the backyard, sit down with a glass of wine, and watch the little darlings giggle and wiggle until they’re tired enough for a nap. Then invite your hubby to swill some whiskey and chase you around the yard. Yo ho ho! Everyone will be happy and you’ll save thousands of dollars. This is a win-win situation.

Traveling with little children requires parents to lie in order to survive the ordeal. Here are a few of my desperate but necessary distortions of the truth I coughed up while attempting to orchestrate the illusive perfect family vacation when my kids were under ten years old.

Driving in rush-hour traffic near Disneyland.

“Of course, it’s okay to pee into a potato chip can, Honey, because it’s against the law to get off the freeways in Los Angeles.”

Trapped at the airport during another flight delay.

“Please stop whining and you can have a new puppy/pony/playhouse if we get home before you’re in high school.”

After four hours of driving through a desolate desert.

“Stop hitting your brother/sister or I will park this car right now and we’ll live off the land and eat scorpions until you can learn to behave.”

After two hours of “Are we there yet?” and “How much longer?”

“Sorry, kids. Mommy is going away for a while.” Then I would pull over, stop, and play dead. Worked every time.

I still mutter like a curmudgeon when I see young parents in airports juggling a small mountain of luggage that includes diapers, food, enormous strollers, DVD players, toys, and clothes that could stock a child care center. My ancestors walked for months to Idaho along the Oregon Trail, and their kids and clothes were bathed once a week in the river, air-dried on a log, and stored in the wagon for the day’s journey. They survived just fine.

Imagine if any pioneer child had complained:

“Pa, the wagon’s too bumpy!”

“Hush, Child, and go trap a rabbit, skin it, and help your Ma make dinner. We’re walking ten miles tomorrow.”

The first time I saw the movie The Sound of Music I yelled “Fraud!” at the end as the family climbed over the Alps singing in perfect harmony in clean clothes. When my kids were little, we couldn’t walk from the house to the car without someone falling headfirst into a mud puddle. And forget about taking a hike together. Any incline more than two inches would cause howls of dismay with repeated pleas to be carried. And that’s when they were teenagers! But, in deference to the movie, if evil Nazis were chasing us, we would manage to escape together, with or without matching lederhosen.

One splendid advantage of getting older is that family trips are easier and less hectic. My kids are in their thirties and have their own children to handle, so I just need to pack yoga pants, t-shirts, and a wine opener. We recently traveled with 11 family members on a week-long vacation. I was overjoyed to play with the grandkids and sing songs and tell stories. Then came Happy Hour and their parents could take over. As they walked away with the boisterous brood, I overheard one of my adult children say, “Stop hitting your sister or we’ll go live in the desert and eat scorpions until you learn to behave.” My work here is done.

Airport Bathrooms can Drain Your Soul

March 27, 2015 By Elaine Ambrose

(Featured on The Huffington Post Travel, March 27, 2015)

As a frequent traveler through life and space, I often have the need to use a restroom in an airport. Such necessary actions require tenacity, humility, and tolerance, human attributes that may not eagerly spring into action after sitting four hours on a plane with a middle-age bladder.

Airport bathrooms were designed by evil people who hate women. Schlepping my carry-on luggage, I get in line for the women’s restroom, and woe to anyone who takes cuts. Once inside, I join others who resemble a herd of bowing, pack-laden peasants as we peek under doors to find an unused toilet. I wrangle two plump pieces as I wiggle inside the stall then pull the luggage tight to my body so I can close the door. Then I shift the ensemble against the door so I have room. I dutifully place the tissue ring around the seat but usually the automatic flusher operates and pulls the tissue down even before I can sit.

I don’t dare sit down without the tissue because the woman before me decided to save time by squatting and spraying the entire seat. So, I straddle the toilet, pull down another tissue, quickly slap it onto the seat and try to maneuver into position before the flusher goes off again. The same thing happens. It’s not a pleasant or quality use of my time to be trapped into a crowded stall with my pants down while screaming at a commode that continues to mock me by flushing on a whim. I suspect demented staff members are operating remote control flush switches and arbitrarily decide which hapless women to torment. I look around for hidden cameras and notice there isn’t any toilet paper.

After a woman successfully manipulates the toilet, then she must wrangle the luggage back out of the stall, stand in line for the sink, wave her hands under the sporadic soap dispenser and hope it works, wash her hands and then find the towels which are inexplicably across the room in a corner next to the woman washing her feet in the sink. Then she throws her used towel into the waste receptacle that reeks of soiled diapers.

Meanwhile, male travelers saunter into their restrooms, whip out and empty their hoses without needing a stall, wash their hands, admire themselves in the mirror, chat with the guys, and are on their second beer at the bar by the time the women straggle out of the bathroom, dragging strips of toilet paper on their shoes.

“What took you so long,” a naive man will ask, but only once.

After a recent long-distance flight, I pranced to the nearest bathroom only to find it closed. Why can’t the maintenance people schedule their cleaning routines around arrival times? If they know a plane loaded with 200 people is landing in 30 minutes, by all means get into that restroom and tidy up because there will be at least 100 females making a stampede for the four available stalls. And, a closed restroom could result in desperate women marching into the men’s room. Been there, done that, didn’t care.

A few times, I’ve enjoyed the privilege of a privy in an airline’s executive lounge. The women’s restrooms are spacious and clean, and have real towels and free breath mints. There aren’t any lines, the stalls are big enough to host a cocktail party (not that you would want to do that), and the automatic flushers politely wait until you have finished your business. Obviously, these facilities were designed by distinguished women who travel.

Caveat #1: Now that this rant has washed away, I’d like to acknowledge the wonder of flying. This week I sat in a chair in a tube with hundreds of other passengers and flew at 38,000 feet over the Pacific Ocean. There were 100,000 flights that day, and thousands of people traveled through airports. The common ordeal of finding a lavatory pales in comparison to the glorious ability to seek adventure and not bitch about inconveniences.

Caveat #2: I’ve enjoyed opportunities to travel the world, and each exotic place comes with customary bathroom facilities. In India, our modern rest stop included a room with a tile-lined hole in the ground and two foot rests. In Nepal, we used a log over a ditch. One facility in South Africa offered a room of toilets without partitions or toilet paper. Many locations and homes in our own country still use outhouses. I recognize my comic rants as First World problems, and I’m grateful for indoor plumbing. Now, onto the next adventure.

Jolly Jaunts on the Mother-Daughter Journey

March 21, 2015 By Elaine Ambrose

Featured on The Huffington Post 50, March 23, 2015.

My daughter has purple hair, colorful tattoos, and she teaches physical and mental health to her loyal clients. I have thin hair, gnarly age spots, and I tell jokes until people snort beer from their noses. Though we have varied techniques of pleasing our intended audiences, we guarantee customer satisfaction and life isn’t boring.

My son and I are solid as a granite mountain with no drama or surprises. We understand each other and always have connected in a slap-stick “I got your back” sort of comedy skit. My daughter and I have shared the peaks and valleys of life with more volatility than a game of fetch with a junkyard dog. At least we’ve passed the wretched teenage years when she would wail, “Stop looking at me!”

If mothers can survive their daughters during puberty, the rest is close to perfection. My daughter and I have traveled together on journeys that define our lives. When she was 11, I took her on a business trip to Chicago and we attended one of the first productions of “Les Miserables.” She knew the score from memory and we laughed together at the raunchy song “Master of the House” and sobbed like babies during “Bring Him Home.”

During college, she lived for a year in Guanajuato, Mexico. I visited her and gasped with pain at her living conditions, mainly because there were 90 steps up to her one-room apartment. She lived alone and didn’t have a stove, heater, or laundry facilities, but she thrived in her new adventure. We experienced a grand time touring the sites, buying fresh flowers and fruit from the local market, and guzzling cool beer at Bar Ocho. In that year, I let go and she matured and blossomed.

Other trips included a six-country tour of Europe with her high school class and a 12-day train odyssey across Canada with my mother. For her 22nd birthday, she was my guest as I hosted a university alumnae tour through Spain. We escaped for two days, rented a car, and drove to the Costa del Sol on the Mediterranean. She spoke fluent Spanish, so the trip was less complicated. After that, we shared a hike on a rugged, 3-day excursion across the Haleakela volcano field in Maui, Hawaii. She led a group of women who slept in tents, cooked over an open fire, and gazed through tears at the brilliant stars. Life with her became one continuous adventure.

As a reward for graduating from college with scholastic honors, I gave her a round-trip, week-long ticket to Hawaii. She didn’t return as planned. She found several jobs to support herself, including working on a tourist boat. One of her responsibilities was to free-dive into the ocean to set the anchor. She did that until a blood vessel burst in her eye. She started a woman’s hiking business and escorted tours across volcano fields and through rain forests. Then she was hired to teach at the Waldorf School on Maui. I wish there were such amazing schools for my grandkids in Idaho. Seven years after going to Hawaii on a week’s trip, she returned with a husband and a baby. Now she colors her hair purple for a fun, creative flair, and she’s the reason I have so much gray hair than I need to dye it brown.

We’re now on another excursion to a writing retreat on Maui. This time, it’s different. I’m recovering from knee surgery, I’m slower, and I have no desire to hike anything beyond two steps into a wine bar. After I lost my boarding pass, she gently took over as tour guide, and I was grateful. The changing of roles is unplanned but necessary. Without her help, I’d still be wandering around the San Francisco airport and she’d be on a Hawaiian beach happily sucking a Mai Tai. I’m secretly one of her biggest fans.

During a recent conversation, we reminisced about the passing of my mother. I carefully approached the subject of her role as my designated Power of Attorney for Health Care. I emphasized that I did not want to live without independence. She soothed my worries with her honest reply: “Don’t worry, Mom. If you’re ever on life support I’ll pull the plug.”

She loves me, too.

If the Shoe Fits, Celebrate

March 6, 2015 By Elaine Ambrose

Attention Shoe Manufacturers: Middle-age women have the resources and desire to purchase fashionable, comfortable shoes. Why don’t you make any?

I’m attending a conference at the Gaylord Opryland Hotel and Resort in Nashville, Tennessee. This resort is so huge that my room is a zip code away from the conference center. I needed to drop little packets of breath mints to trace the way back. Such an ordeal requires shoes that are practical as well as pretty. Good luck with that.

While packing for the trip, I had no problem choosing the outfits, coordinating accessories, and mandatory bags of trail mix to fool myself into thinking I would eat healthy on the trip. (Those little bags have at least 100 chocolate M&M candies.) However, selecting the appropriate shoes gave me heartburn on top of the candy.

The open-toed pair with the 3-inch heels looked elegant and classy; the perfect choice for my sophisticated suit. But I knew they were 2-hour shoes for a 12-hour work day, and I couldn’t tolerate that much pain. My other choice was my favorite Joseph Seibel slip-ons. This comfortable pair could go 18 hours, but the flat, wedged heel was borderline ready for the retirement home. After two minutes of intense contemplation, the heels were returned to the closet. Comfort won.

I’ve always assumed shoes were made to cover the feet and to help people scamper over rocks, bugs, and dog poop. Now we’ve evolved into this shoe-worshiping cult where women trade the mortgage and their first-born child for a pair of Christian Louboutin red-soled shoes, and doting grandmas buy expensive baby shoes for a new grandbaby who will wear them once and then wonder 18 years later how to pay for college.

And women can’t strut away with all the blame. Men are paying $560 for a pair of Gucci hi-top sneakers, and Lucchese offers a pair of alligator belly cowboy boots for $10,513. The guy who wears those boots will never come within 100 miles of a real rodeo. And if he did, the true cowboys with manure on their boots and callouses on their hands would throw him into the water trough and barter the boots for beer.

Fancy, high-heeled, pointed-toed shoes are designed for young people who don’t walk. They just stand around and look fetching. If I need to change from my fuzzy slippers to anything with a sole, it’s because I have places to go. My feet are not pointed so why should I cram a rectangle foot into a triangle? My small feet do their best to support my mature frame, so why should I teeter on a teeny heel and hope I didn’t fall down and roll my ankle? My wine budget cut into my spending money so why should I pay $300 for two inches of leather that will be out of style in six months?

Insert the best word: As middle-age women (1) age, (2) ripen, (3) no longer give a damn, we have the bold ability to say (1) don’t judge my flip flops, (2) kiss my bunion, (3) the only good stiletto is one used as a weapon. We scoff at the young fashionistas skittering about on 6-inch heels, knowing someday they’ll end up at the bottom of the stairs with a broken heel and a wounded ego. Been there, done that.

So, it’s with a final plea that I implore the shoe industry to cobble some creative, cute, and comfy shoes for us. We’ll buy them. And if you throw in trail mix with M&Ms, we’ll get two pairs.

The Joys of Traveling with Your Children (after age 30)

February 5, 2015 By Elaine Ambrose

If given the choice between traveling with small children and having a root canal, I’d be at the dentist office sucking laughing gas before noon. I adore kids but the logistics of getting them more than 100 miles is too much to endure unless they can be shipped like golf clubs or crated like pets.

Driving in rush-hour traffic near Disneyland.

“Of course, it’s okay to pee into a potato chip can, Honey, because it’s against the law to get off the freeways in Los Angeles.”

Trapped at the airport during another flight delay.

“Please stop whining and you can have a new puppy/pony/playhouse if we get home before you’re in high school.”

After four hours of driving through a desolate desert.

“Stop hitting your brother/sister or I will park this car right now and we’ll live off the land and eat scorpions until you can learn to behave.”

After two hours of “Are we there yet?” and “How much longer?”

“Sorry, kids. Mommy is going away for a while.” Then I would pull over, stop, and play dead. Worked every time.

Imagine if any pioneer child had complained:

“Pa, the wagon’s too bumpy!”

“Hush, Child, and go trap a rabbit, skin it, and help your Ma make dinner. We’re walking ten miles tomorrow.”

My Five Truths and One Lie

November 21, 2014 By Elaine Ambrose

I’m participating in NaBloPoMo, a writing exercise that involves writing a blog every day for the month of November. Yesterday a sassy group of midlife women bloggers wrote five facts and one lie about their lives and we had to guess which comment was the lie. Here are my comments and the revealed lie:

I rode on a bull elephant in a jungle in Nepal and witnessed a tiger kill a water buffalo. True. Here I am on the back of a huge elephant as we departed the safari camp to wander through the jungle. The next shot is of the tiger stalking his prey. Then the dust, screams, shaking elephant, and commotion caused the camera to jerk around, but we captured a few shots. The long-time directors of the camp were amazed because they had never seen a live kill.

2. I floated down the Nile to visit the ancient Temple of Luxor. True. Here I am at the Luxor Temple pointing out a well-endowed Egyptian warrior chiseled in hard stone when the temple was manually erected thousands of years ago. The observation was for historical reference only.

I love beer and ‘brats after a day of fishing. False. I prefer wine, chocolate, and a day of boating.

I sang in the American Cathedral in Paris. True. I sang with a concert choir from the University of Idaho and we toured Europe in 1971. The last performance was in the American Cathedral in Paris, and the sound was so acoustically perfect that we sobbed like babies. The trip changed my life.

I rode my horse in the barrel race at the Gooding County Fair and Rodeo. True. There aren’t any photos, so you’ll need to trust me. It happened before the invention of cameras, almost. My short story about barrel racing appeared in an anthology titled The Dog with the Old Soul, published by Harlequin.

I can write forward and backwards using two hands while singing in Latin. True. This photo was taken in a quaint café in Sienna, Italy. I am writing backwards with my left hand and forward with my right hand while singing in Latin. I get free drinks in bars with that exceptional talent.

Those are five interesting facts and one lie about me. My life continues to be one grand adventure after another. Except for the fishing. I don’t fish.

The Joys of Traveling with Children (Over Age 30)

Airport Bathrooms can Drain Your Soul

Jolly Jaunts on the Mother-Daughter Journey

If the Shoe Fits, Celebrate

The Joys of Traveling with Your Children (after age 30)

My Five Truths and One Lie

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