Family getaway offers chance to take on difficult questions

The directions were wrong, perhaps outdated, or perhaps we’d parked in the wrong place. At the very least the directions were unclear, as my family and I recently attempted to navigate some fire trails toward Benham Falls in central Oregon.

We planned to embark on the family-friendly biking trail, and not the one described as “difficult and narrow.”

After we bickered for a bit in the afternoon heat, my husband downloaded a map from another source, showing a trail that would parallel the Deschutes River. When we arrived at the trailhead, it was the technical trail the original map had warned us against.

As we gazed up a steep, bumpy stretch, we wondered if we should turn around. We stepped aside for cyclists, asking them what the trail was like ahead. They told us it flattened out, so we reasoned we could always turn around and walk our bikes on the trickiest stretches.

We hopped back on, riding single file through the pine forest. It was the first time the twins were going dirt biking, and I kept picturing accidents, their bodies hurling over their handlebars, broken collarbones, broken arms. But no one fell.

While taking a water break, we resumed our conversation about an incident at a local discount superstore, when a customer sputtered, “This isn’t even the exit” as our family walked past her.

“Have a nice day!” I’d replied. Later, we confirmed a “welcome” sign hung over the door; it was both entrance and exit.

The boys asked why she was so angry; probably the sight of our masked family set her off, I explained.

“My childhood has been tainted with COVID,” Didi said.

“The pandemic won’t end because people won’t wear masks,” Gege said.

As summer travel season kicks into high gear, road trips are an opportunity for families to have heart-to-hearts. Being away from digital distractions in close proximity for hours on end amid changing scenery helps loosen our tongues. Didi and Gege chatter often about video games and other silliness of 10-year-old boys, but they also raise questions revolving around the latest news.

Eventually we arrived at the waterfall — which, in truth, were Class 5 rapids, but impressive all the same — created by the eruption of the Lava Butte volcano 6,000 years ago. After admiring it, our conversations continued.

“Why is it called Pride Month if pride is one of the seven deadly sins?” Gege asked.

“The sin is being prideful,” my husband explained. “Not pride.”

“Why isn’t it called Gay Month?” Gege asked.

“Because it’s a rainbow of identities: gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and more,” I said.

We unpacked structural racism, to understand how past laws that excluded Black people shaped Oregon’s demographics today. We also talked about the heavy impact of Roe v. Wade on the poor and people of color.

“Why do Republicans keep winning?” Didi asked.

We told them about the attempts at voter suppression and the impact of the Electoral College.

We also discussed gun control, school shootings and the Supreme Court striking down concealed gun laws — while in the same week Congress passed gun control laws that strengthened background checks for the youngest buyers, among other reforms — which in turn led to a discussion of the checks and balances of the three branches of government.

“Can we … talk about something easier?” my husband joked in the car one morning. “It’s not even 9 a.m.!”

“I think I’m becoming a leftist radical,” Didi proudly proclaimed, then asked, “What’s a radical?”

We’re not quite sure where he’s getting his rhetoric, but we’ll try our best to answer.

“A radical can be on the right or the left,” I said. “It’s someone who wants to dismantle the system, rather than change it from within.”

After that, each of us slipped on our headphones for a while, in our own bubble until the next set of questions began.

As summer travel season kicks into high gear, road trips are an opportunity for families to have heart-to-hearts.