Guest Post: Ramblin’ Man

My awesome dad was willing to write a guest post for me, and I’m really excited to share this post from one of my favorite travel partners: Randy Brown!

When Paige asked me to be a guest blogger on her blog I had two ideas for what I wanted to write on, but I think I will include both because the last one is really just a funny road trip story. So, after you read this you will wonder where Paige got her writing skills, but anyway here it goes…

My sister, me, my dad and my brother on a family vacation

When I was young my family took family vacations. My folks must have thought we would like the ocean since most of our trips involved the ocean. Don’t get me wrong, I do love the ocean. I love the ocean. I love to hear the waves crash, for me it is a calming and relaxing experience, and we had fun riding the waves, but as I got older and my wife and I had kids, we started branching out to the National Parks. On a trip to the American Southwest we fell in love with nature, the changing landscape as we drove across the U.S. and constantly saying, “Look at that!” and “Can you imagine what the first pioneers thought as they ventured out west.” At the Canyons in Utah and Arizona I can almost imagine seeing a Native American on a cliff looking down at this absolute beautiful overlook. We always say it probably looked exactly the same except for the road. Ha! Or what pioneers thought when they got to the rim of the Grand Canyon and the husband got an earful from his wife about what they’re going to do now? “How are we going to cross this? You didn’t say anything about this when we left!” Ha! I just let my imagination go and picture these things in my mind.

My wife, me, Cory and Paige at the Grand Canyon

I have come a long way from my old family vacations, and I wish I would have started seeing more of the U.S. earlier, but I am really enjoying my travels across the U.S., not only for my own enjoyment, but for the enjoyment I see in the faces of my family. We really have a great time on these road trips. I have so many great memories and even more to come. I always wanted to take the kids to see all of the lower 48 states before they were 18. We came close, but I did give Paige and her brother the travel bug. Paige has taken it and ran with it. I am glad that she has been able to see and do so much, not only here in the U.S., but in Europe also. Even though I do not like to fly, I love seeing Europe through the eyes of Paige and her mom through the great pictures they bring back, and their stories.

So, as I close, I want to thank Paige for letting me ramble on like this… which brings me to my story of one of our trips as a child. We were going to a family reunion in Illinois and our family car broke down. We weren’t going to be able to fix it in time, so we had to take my dad’s old rambler (that was a make of car) and I mean OLD! The paint was coming off, it smoked, and I thought my dad was crazy! My brother and sister did not want to go in that thing, but we did and what a trip! We got about 50 miles down the highway and we heard a THUMP, THUMP, THUMP! So, my dad stopped because he though we had a flat tire, but back then, you could get retreaded tires, so it was a piece of tread that had come loose! So he gets back in, gets a knife and cuts off that piece of tread! So for the next 150 miles we stopped 3 or 4 more times as he cut more and more off the tires! Believe it or not, we made it there, and also back home on the same tires, just cutting off more of the tires every time we heard the THUMP! THUMP! THUMP! We all laugh about this even now. What a great memory… A scary but great one.

I have so many great memories, as I’m sure all of you have. I would love to hear some of them. Please share them! Thanks, Paige, for letting me share.

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