The travel bug bit me for life at a very young age. When I was 5, we started traveling to Canada every summer for vacation. My Daddy preferred to drive at night, and he would come home from work on a Friday, immediately go to bed, wake up around 2 or 3 in the morning and we’d start driving.
Our station wagon was always packed to the gills, mostly with boat motors and fishing gear for my dad, a life jacket for me, and cooking gear for Mom. My parents listened to Paul Harvey on the AM radio with “the rest of the story.” It seemed like whichever state we drove through Paul was on the radio telling amazing stories of ordinary lives with glorious and unexpected outcomes.
I’d lay in the backseat, drifting in and out. Sleep, then stars, then singing to myself, then a little Paul Harvey, then sleep again. I always asked my parents to wake me up before we crossed a state line of the Canadian border. Ohio. Pennsylvania. New York. Canada! I loved that drive. I had a favorite overpass that was called the “Angola Service Center.”
It had a skybridge that went across the highway to get from the parking lot to the restaurants and restrooms. Daddy let me stand on the bridge doing the “trucker blow your horn” signal until a truck honked for me. It made me downright giddy.
Early morning on Saturday, Mama would say “We’re almost in Canada!” and I would spring to life to be awake for the border crossing. We crossed at the Rainbow Bridge into Niagara Falls, Ontario and suddenly- a whole new world!
There were Canadian Mounted Police! The money was pretty colors! Everything was in both English and French! (It’s the reason I took French in high school and college although as it turns out, Spanish would have been more helpful during my 22 years in San Diego.) There were shops with Maple Leaf candy and my very favorite all-time candy bar- Coffee Crisp! People had accents! When we arrived at our cabin in the woods, we could take our boat to the store! The flag was a giant maple leaf!
I loved leaving Stow, Ohio every summer and discovering a whole new world. Everything seemed different and exotic. I adored meeting new people whose lives were nothing like mine. I was delighted to read things written in French.
That journey every summer was the highlight of my year, every year until I grew up and stoppped vacationing with my parents.
My first road trips were with my adventurous parents. They were the catalyst to my lifelong love of travel. Summers in Canada. Crystal clear lakes for fishing and swimming and diving. Laughter, music, and Paul Harvey.
How could I resist the lure of the road?
Forest Gumping my way through life 
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