Are We There Yet?

I'm about to hit the road in celebration of the brief period of time that I have between summer school and regular school. We do this even though all kinds of conventional wisdom tells us that it's not a great idea. The rest of the planet seems to be hanging close to home, giving rise to a silly new trend: Staycations.
I know that gas is hovering right around five dollars a gallon, but the idea that I would spend another two weeks hanging around my neighborhood seems more ridiculous than the newly fabricated word to describe a trend that has been generated by years of road trips and hitting the highway. At last, the highway is hitting back.
I could spend the next fortnight staying right where I am. I could wake up late, or as late as our dog and my son would allow. I could go out to a museum, or maybe take in a movie or two. We're paying for cable, after all. Why not stay home and catch up on all those TV shows and movies that I missed while I was so busy working? There is so much to do right around here, after all.
Well, I am not predisposed to such activity. If I did decide to hang around the house, I would almost certainly find myself immersed in some home improvement project before the first week was half over. What kind of vacation would that be? Truth is, it would be a lot like the weekends and vacations that I have had for the past eleven months.
I know what vacations mean to me: Vacate and Shun. My brothers and I spent months of our young lives in the back seat. Let those newspapers pile up on the front porch and get somebody to look after the house plants and the dog. Packing up and taking off is a leap of faith. Everything will be fine back at the ranch if we take a little ride in the country. Leave those cares behind and start worrying about who gets a window seat. Roadside diners and sleeping in different beds are all part of the allure. There's nothing like the confines of a car to bring about a little creative and enforced family togetherness.
So, in open defiance of Al Gore and fiscal sense, we're loading up the Family Truckster and vacating the premises. It is, after all, my family legacy.