The Vacation Grinch

Vacation. 

Is there any other word that can evoke any more anticipation of excitement, relaxation, adventure or fun?

Not with me. I am a vacation Grinch.

I wasn’t always that way. When I was a kid, my family packed up our station wagon and drove to a different part of the country each summer. I have fond recollections of the joy of traveling to different places. I had hopes of creating similar experiences with my wife and son.

But when you have a child with autism, it isn’t easy to come up with feasible vacation ideas. I could easily name dozens of places I would love to go, but I can also come up with dozens of reasons why each of those places would be difficult for our son.

Going anywhere that involve a lot of waiting can be ruled out right away, since my son still has trouble having to wait for more than a few minutes. That alone eliminates many of the popular family vacation destinations. 

Furthermore, Kai’s interests are not typical. He is a kid who is into numbers and collecting medicine containers, not going to aquariums or zoos like most kids. 

Still, we want to give him the experience of new places. Plus, we want to get away and relax, too. We also know that he loves beaches.

So, this week, we embarked on a trip to North Carolina.

On the road

We drove as far as Pennsylvania on the first day. The highlight for Kai was checking out all of the room numbers in the motel we stayed in that night. We walked up and down the hallway of each of the five floors, looking at all the numbers. My inner Grinch was thinking that we did not have to drive several hundred miles for that experience.

Eventually, we made it to our destination, North Carolina’s Outer Banks. Kai did well in the car -- most of the way.

Summer traffic to the Outer Banks is horrific, particularly when you arrive on the weekend as we did. With only one bridge leading in, the cars back up for miles. It took three hours to go the last thirty miles of our 1,000-mile journey. 

That was about two-and-a-half hours too long.

Kai was screaming as the car barely moved. I understood how he felt. I suppressed my own scream only because I was trying to set a good example. But my Grinch was thinking, did we really have to come all this way for traffic even worse than back home?

The Outer Banks

Once here at the Outer Banks, we were excited to take in the local sites.

One day, we drove nearly two hours to see the tallest lighthouse in America at Cape Hatteras. Kai did fine in the car, but we barely made it from the parking lot to a spot where we could take a picture before he started complaining loudly. We snapped off a quick picture and left.

After that, we went to one of the most beautiful, pristine beaches that I have ever seen. Fish swam right up to the beach in spots. Beautiful shells were easily found. Surely this would make our son happy. And it did.

For about ten minutes.

Then he started vociferously yelling that he wanted to go home. We held off for about ten more minutes, and then departed.

My Grinch really emerged on that day, and I started wondering if this trip was worth it. I was frustrated that my son was keeping us from enjoying more of the local sites.

Taming the Grinch

Fortunately, a beautiful sunset, a night of sleep and a new day has given me a fresh outlook.

I understand that Kai is just not capable of doing everything that we want to do, at least for now. But that doesn’t mean that he isn’t getting something out of our experience here.

He has enjoyed diving for shells in the calm waters of Albemarie Sound every day. And while we didn’t always stay as long at the beaches as we would have liked, he mostly had fun while we were there.

Most especially, he has had a great time with his uncle and aunt and cousins that we shared this adventure with. 

He was jubilant at burying Uncle Frankie in the sand, and then, in turn, getting buried.

He loved hanging around his older cousins and playing Mario with them.

He was even perfectly behaved when they all watched him so that my wife and I could enjoy an afternoon on our own.   

I now realize that a vacation doesn’t have to involve seeing every site to be really worthwhile. Great memories are made in all sorts of ways.

And that realization has brought a smile to this vacation Grinch’s face.