Planes, Trains, and Automobiles

Even without much interest in the holiday itself, our Christmas trip to Texas had much to be excited about.

Seeing family.Lots and lots of family.Texas nostalgiaGiving giftsand getting some cool ones too.Taking baths in enviable, swimming pool-like bathtubs. And, of course, eating piles and piles of food.

But most of all, it was exciting to see Nora experience new things and to finally be able to ride the ferry boat and airplanes we had been talking about all month.  Yes we did it all: boats

(from inside the car trying to battle a little someone’s tendency to get sea sick, which worked on the way off-island, but not on the way back…to Chris’ dismay as Nora was sitting in his lap at the time)

buses

(airport shuttles, really, but that doesn’t matter when you’re two)

and planes.

Oh, to see her experience the planes.Nora’s flown before, quite a bit as an infant and once on a trip to Texas, but she doesn’t remember those trips, all taken before she was a year old.  She was so excited to fly on an airplane leading up to this trip, and the feeling just grew and grew as it actually happened.  I was overwhelmed with her joy as we boarded the plane and as it took off into the clouds.When she wasn’t bouncing up and down on the seat, she was glued to that window.It was one of the moments that makes parenting perfect; one of the memories that I will cherish forever.

I forget sometimes just how different our world is from “America.”  In America there are things like stoplights, which any toddler can identify but were completely foreign to Nora before our trip.  There are novelties like escalators and moving sidewalks.There are roads where you can drive more than 40mph, in lanes and lanes and lanes of traffic, bordered by more restaurants and retail stores than imaginable, not to mention gaudy billboards and gigantic signs.

There are flashing lights and unnatural things everywhere.  I can only imagine how the world looks to eyes used to cobblestones, gray cedar siding, and the eleven HDC approved colors.  It only took two blocks driving through [what many people consider to be] “quaint” Cape Cod for me to remember last fall’s trip off-island, when we decided that it’s a great place to visit, but we wouldn’t really want to live there.  Even though there are many things in America to admire for their own type of beauty: tall buildings lost in clouds, tunnels that seem to go on forever

the guilty pleasure of Taco Cabana at 10:30 at night… I’ll still take my home sweet Nantucket home, simple, sandy, and steeped in tradition, any day.  We had a wonderful trip, but boy am I glad to be home.