Recent trip

The family took a trip to Pennsylvania dutch country recently. We have two boys ages 5 1/2 and 4.

If you dont know its a region in pennsylvania with a strong Amish influence. It’s pretty touristy but the Amish do still actually live there and you do see them going about thier daily lives in the midst of all the tourists.

I did get a sense of authenticity to some degree. We went to get ice cream one eventing and a family rolled up in thier horse drawn buggy. I did a double take and stared a bit. Thats part of the allure of the area I guess. I would say its worth your time if you are looking for something kind of unique.

But the Amish and what we did while there is not really the point of this writing. We were traveling with young children. And it is most of the time not fun. There was nothing relaxing about this trip. We were travelling with another family who also has two young children. It was a total of 4 children under 6. There is a lot written about a “trip” vs a “vacation”, you can google it and read it for yourself if you care. I would definitively put travel with children in the trip category.

Our kids are high energy. I have seen them taking turns running around in circles in the den while counting to 100 to see who could do it better? or faster? it was some metric that made sense to them. I don’t think I would consider them to have behavior problems but if there was a scale that measured such things they would probably be close to some kind of cutoff. Either way it’s a challenge for me. When we are out of their normal routine its mostly my wife and I telling them not to do something.

Let me give you a little flavor of what a typical afternoon while on our trip might be like. The writer took some liberties with the actual details, but trust me that doesn’t really matter.

We went to a farm which is a really a playground/ amusement park. It’s huge plane with about 2 dozen or so attractions. As soon as we get out the car the boys ran as fast as they could through the parking lot to get to the pedal cars they saw when we pulled in. The only thing that stopped was that they didn’t have tickets to get in yet.

Once we finally got in the boys continued their b-line to the cars. My older guy started going in the wrong direction around the loop. And my little guy was screaming at me to adjust his seat because his feet couldn’t teach the pedals..

That’s lasted for 3 minutes, which believe it not, is a long time. We then quickly ran to see some farm animals they had that you could feed. We of course had to buy food for both boys. The older one decided he didn’t want to feed then and ran off to play with some water rubber duck floating thing. My younger son then threw all the food at once just outside the animal pen on the ground. That lasted about 2 minutes.

The little guy then joined his brother and the other kids we were traveling with at the water rubber duck thing..that lasted over 10 minutes. Amazing. And was only stopped by the older needing to go poop.

Mom took them both to the bathroom because the mere suggestion of one having to go makes the other desperately need to go as well. 5 minutes later they reemerged. Nobody went.

We proceeded on to walk to the far side of the farm. We had heard of an attraction that let you shoot apples out of a huge hydraulic gun at various targets. 2 minutes into the walk my oldest had to poop again. We had to walk back the bathroom we were just at. 5 minutes later they emerged. Nobody went.

We continued on the apple shooting area. All the kids enjoyed it. The blast when the gun was shot was quite loud and they all needed earplugs. We spend about 20 minutes here and of course the price of this activity was not included in the entrance fee.

We then made our way to a slide built into the hillside. You had to sit on a blanket thing to go down it. It was a really steep walk up to the top. I did not mention it was about 90 degrees and 110% humidity.

As we crested the top of hill for our first ride. My oldest said he had to poop and it could not wait. “Couldn’t wait?” I said. I have to go right now he proclaimed and riding the slide down, the quickest way was not acceptable. We walked down the hill and found the restroom and tried to poop. 5 minutes later we emerged and nobody went.

We hit a couple more attractions and spend more money on food and drinks that we hardly touched.

I Really had to reflect on all this. Let me summarize so you have the context.

We drove 5 hours, stayed in an expensive hotel for 3 days, ate crappy food that was overpriced to have experiences like the one described above. In a place that me and my wife had also been too.

Why the fuck did we do this. I would think that maybe we were doing it wrong but it wasn’t just us. The places we went were packed with families. All seemingly having a similar experience to us.

Perhaps its about nostalgia? my wife and I had both done a similar trip as children. And I guess our parents , when they were kids probably did something similar? For the parents its about coming home. A return to childhood and innocence? I dont think thats was it in this case. I have vague memories of my trip as a child and I don’t think it had any meaningful impact on me.

I think a meaningful happy life comes in part from an understanding of the world around you. Why things are the way they are. Understanding the connections to seemingly unconnected things. Finding the pattern in the chaos.

In order to make those connections you need to go out into the world and be in it. In order to connect the dots you need dots to connect. You can get these dots in your head by going out into the world with an open mind. Doing things and paying attention.

I can only hope 20 or 30 years from now my boys can recall this seemingly unsatisfying experience and make a connection. Or perhaps they will plan a trip with their families and realize what nightmare it must have been for their parents.