My Mom and I took 3 trips together to Europe. The first was to Cornwall and London around 2002. I think this was one of the first of her many trips around the world. Needless to say, we were both a bit out of our element and were relying on each other.

In Cornwall we rented a car. Unfortunately it was a very large SUV that I had to drive on the wrong side of the car, on the wrong side of the road, and on roads that were barely one car wide. Mom was my navigator. If you’ve ever travelled with my mom you can imagine her as a navigator: “susie did you see that red flower?  It’s so pretty!  What do you think it was?  Maybe we could go back and cut off a piece to bring home?  What a cute house!  What kind of dog was that? What are all these people doing, shouldn’t they be at work?”    We got lost so many times. Once we ended up on a cow path where the hedgerows on either side were brushing the side of the car and were so high we didn’t have any idea where we were going. We just had to keep going forward and hope there was an end. We also did the classic European Vacation bit where we were stuck in a rotary and didn’t know which way to get out. 

Traveling was always an adventure with her and I wish I had enjoyed it more at the time instead of getting so stressed.