From the kitchen window I could barely make out my husband, Lewis, in the predawn darkness, loading the Suburban with everything I’d packed for the road trip our two daughters and I were taking—10 days, 3,400 miles across the Southwest.
Lewis had to work, so it was just us girls. Already we were off schedule. Sarah and Emma weren’t even out of bed yet.
“Girls,” I called out. “C’mon, we’ve got to get moving!”
I looked down at the list I’d made: Three suitcases; a tent for the nights we’d be camping; sleeping bags; an ice chest with turkey and ham sandwiches, potato salad, cheese sticks and bottled water; a bag with peanut butter and bread, chips and granola bars; charcoal, matches and lighter fluid; a camera; an old-fashioned Rand McNally Atlas; Travel Yahtzee; a Bible; and the itinerary I’d planned down to the hour from our starting point in Edmond, Oklahoma.
I turned to see Sarah, my 13-year-old, clutching her pillow and blanket, hair uncombed, but with earbuds already in place.
“Honey,” I said, raising my voice enough for her to hear me. “We talked about this. We’re not taking any electronics. The whole point is for us to have fun together, to have actual conversations, see cool places and just get away from all the stuff in our lives.”
But more than that, I wanted this chance to get closer to her, while there was still time. She was barely a teenager and already I could feel her pulling away from me, more interested in texting her friends and playing on her iPod.
I missed the days when the smallest thing—a beautiful fall leaf found on a hike or a trip to the ice-cream shop— was exciting to her. Now those times felt like distant memories, the end of something wonderful.
Sarah reluctantly laid her iPod on the kitchen table. “Fine,” she sighed. “But I didn’t do my hair yet.”
When had dolling herself up become so important? “Don’t worry, you’re going to be in the car,” I said. Just then eight-year-old Emma popped into the kitchen, a big smile on her face, eager to take on the day.
“You’re all set,” Lewis called. We gathered in a circle, holding hands, our heads bowed. Lewis prayed for God to watch over us. And please show me how to reconnect with Sarah, I added silently.
We reached the Texas Panhandle as the sun peeked over the horizon behind us. Emma gazed out the window at the wide-open spaces, excitedly announcing each passing freight train and feedlot. I loved her innocence, her enthusiasm, like Sarah’s when she was that age. If only there was a way to get those years back again.
“Mom, it’s a dirt devil!” Emma yelled. I looked at the cloud of swirling dust in the distance, then at Sarah, sound asleep, her head buried in her pillow. She was missing everything.
After a quick lunch at a rest stop we drove on to Roswell, New Mexico—our first destination. I pulled off the interstate and followed our GPS to…an empty cow pasture.
“Kids, this is it,” I said, jumping out of the SUV. “This is where some people say space aliens crash-landed in 1947. There was even talk that their ship was captured by the government. Isn’t that cool?”
Sarah and Emma looked at the grass riffling in the breeze and then at each other. “Mom,” Sarah said, “this is boring. But that looks like fun.” She pointed to a sign for a kitschy UFO gift shop.
“But this is history,” I protested. “That’s just going to be a place with a bunch of tacky souvenirs.”
“What are we waiting for?” Sarah said, walking toward the car, Emma close behind. The girls loved the shop. They giggled nonstop, posing for pictures with their arms around goofy-looking Martian mannequins.
“C’mon, Mom,” Emma said, waving me over to sit next to a green-skinned alien on a couch. Even I had to laugh.
The next day we explored Carlsbad Caverns in southeast New Mexico, Emma and I gawking at the underground rock formations. That is, when I wasn’t urging Sarah to keep up. Her feet slowly shuffled down the cave paths, her mind anywhere but with us.
Then it was on to Acoma Pueblo, near Albuquerque, a Native American village built atop a sheer bluff, a place the Acoma have called home for nearly 900 years. Sarah barely paid attention until we reached an open-air market.
Day Four we waited an hour while Sarah straightened her hair at the hotel. We had to hurry to get to the Bandera Volcano and Ice Cave near the Continental Divide.
We hiked through a tunnel created by boiling lava, down to a cavern where the temperature never rises above 31 degrees and the floor is made of ice 20 feet thick.
“Can you imagine, a volcano creating all this?” I said.
“It’s wild,” Emma said. “Like a magical king—” Where was Sarah? I turned to find her trailing behind two other families. Were we even on the same vacation?
Late that afternoon we pulled into Red Rock State Park, in northwestern New Mexico. The sky was dark and overcast. The girls and I hurried to get our tent up. I hammered in the last stake just before the downpour. So much for mother-daughter bonding by the campfire or an impromptu Bible study.
“I guess we’ll have to go into town for dinner,” I said.
“All right!” the girls cheered.
It was barely sprinkling when we got to downtown Gallup. A crowd was gathering. “Look!” Sarah said, pointing to a banner near an outdoor amphitheater. “Nightly Indian dances. Can we go?”
Dancers in full ceremonial dress lined the street. Tantalizing aromas filled the air. Not the night I’d planned at all. But I had to admit it looked like fun.
“Let’s do it,” I said. We bought frybread tacos and found a spot on the sidewalk next to an older Native American woman, her long hair loose down her back. She scooted closer to us and asked where we were from. Sarah and Emma studied the lines in her face. I hoped she wouldn’t mind.
“Did you see?” the woman said. She pointed to a spectacular rainbow that stretched across the sky, its tail dipping all the way to the horizon.
“I wonder where it ends,” I said.
“Once from my kitchen I saw rays of light shining through the window, brighter than I’d ever seen before,” the woman said. “I opened the front door and my whole yard, even the air around me, was awash with the most brilliant colors, red, orange, yellow, green. Can you guess what it was?”
The girls slowly shook their heads.
“It was the end of the rainbow,” she said. Then she fixed her eyes on mine and whispered, “Or maybe it was the beginning. It depends on how you look at it.”
Her words reverberated in my mind with the beat of the drums. It was true, wasn’t it? Sarah was leaving childhood. She was growing and changing, discovering her own interests, different from mine (way different!).
It made sense that our relationship would change too, one part of our journey as mother and daughter ending as another was beginning. A favorite Bible verse, Jeremiah 29:11, popped into my head: “I know the plans I have for you…plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”
I put my arm around Sarah. She rested her head on my shoulder, and together we traced the path of the rainbow across the sky.
Check out our slideshow of snapshots from Marci's trip!
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