Family, Life, Travel, Writing

A Car Ride in Destin

Kari

As part of her English final, Ella needed to do a project on vignettes that reflected her life, similar to the book they had just finished reading. She asked for my help, which always makes me so happy. I got to sit next to my youngest daughter and write one rainy April afternoon. That felt very special.

One of the vignettes she wanted to write was about Destin, Florida. Specifically, the last time the four of us, Anna, Mike, Ella, and I, were there together in May of 2019.

What I did not expect was what Ella would later say about it. When I asked her what her favorite memory from all three years in Destin was, she did not choose parasailing or the beach or the pool.

She chose a car ride.

Ella in Destin- 2019

We had no idea at the time that this trip would end up being the last family vacation we would take. The following winter, COVID became part of our vocabulary, and everything shifted. By the time travel felt possible again, life had already reshaped itself. Anna was out of the house and working full time, we had added another dog to the mix, and Ella’s schedule had changed completely.

But in that moment, in 2019, we’d had three spring breaks in a row in Destin. We rented a condo on the beach, and it became something we all looked forward to, a kind of rhythm and refuge. If everything had stayed the same, we probably would have planned another trip for May of 2020.

When Ella talked about what she loved most, she named the obvious things first. Parasailing for the first time. Dinners at the open-air restaurant overlooking the ocean. Long days at the pool. Eating dinner in our condo. Getting dessert in the evening. Falling asleep to the sound of waves just outside our window.

But when I asked her to narrow it down, she went to something else entirely.

The car ride.

That day, we decided to go to Panama City Beach. It was about an hour from Destin, and we wanted to drive around the area because we had never been there before. It was a beautiful, warm, sunny day.

We played music and talked the whole way there. Nothing rushed. Nothing structured. Just the four of us moving through the day together.

We drove around a bit when we arrived, then stopped at an outdoor mall for lunch. The girls got Chipotle, which had become a favorite for them, and Mike and I got Chicken Salad Chick, something we cannot get at home. Ella, who was 11 at the time, loved that she could sit and eat just with her big sister. Anna, who was 19, made it feel like a small pocket of independence for both of them, especially on vacation.

Afterward, we wandered through Target and did what you do when you are in a Target in another town. Everything feels slightly familiar and slightly new at the same time. We each got a Starbucks drink and headed back to the car.

On the drive home, Mike made a comment that his chocolate chip was stuck in his straw. It was such a small thing, but we all laughed because it sounded like the most ridiculous vacation problem. Even he was laughing at it.

That ride back is the part Ella remembers most. We played Anna’s playlist and sang along to Old Town Road and Who Do You Love by The Chainsmokers. I still hear those songs and go right back into that car.

When Ella told me this was her favorite memory from all of Destin, I felt something soften in me. The moments we think are just in between are often the ones that stay.

I told Anna about it later and she remembered it immediately too. It was one of her favorites as well.

I find myself returning to that day often. Not because anything dramatic happened, but because nothing had to. We were simply together, moving through a small stretch of time that ended up mattering more than we understood.

And I think that is what I keep learning. When I look back at our vacations, and really at most of life, it is not the big planned experiences that linger for my children. It is the ordinary hours inside them.

Somehow, those are the moments that matter

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59 thoughts on “A Car Ride in Destin”

  1. That really captures something true about how memory works. It’s often not the “big” moments that stay with us, but the quiet in-between ones where everyone is simply present and at ease.
    There’s something deeply comforting about that car ride becoming the highlight, not because it was planned, but because it was shared. 🙏

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  3. This is a beautiful post, Kari, and so true. When I look back upon some of my getaways with Tara, the favorite moments tend to be the tiny ones. Not the fancy dinner out or the climb to the top of the lighthouse, but the morning in the room, sipping coffee while thumbing through a book, sharing idle chit-chat while the day—still unwritten and full of promise—gradually brightened.

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    1. I love this so much, and I know exactly what you mean. The coffee, the quiet morning, just being together before the day really starts. That’s the good stuff.

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  5. All of this is extra good.

    “The moments we think are just in between are often the ones that stay.”

    Is going straight into my notebook of wisdom from others to cherish.

    (It’s actually a folder called “Quotes” in my Notes app, but that doesn’t jive with the wonderful enormity of your notion.)

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    1. Chris! This makes me so happy. I have a book like this on my soul homework table. I’m actually working on book two now. I love that we both keep quotes we love. ❤️

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  6. This is so lovely! I have so many wonderful memories of car trips with my parents – the music (on 8-track tapes), the snacks, the silly conversations. You’re so right that the in-between moments are often the ones that stay with us.

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    1. 8-tracks! OMG yes! I used to love going on road trips as a child. What’s funny is that the year before, we drove to Destin (a LONG drive) with the kids and our “bonus” child—a friend of Anna’s who lived across the street. The kids do not look back on that trip as fondly. 🤣

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  7. I love this. It goes back to the importance of “the little things”, doesn’t it? And to think, that there but for this paper Ella had to write, you never would have known. Another moment to cherish.

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  8. This is beautiful. It’s so true that the small moments often stick with us and hold more meaning that the grand gestures. Thank you so much for sharing.

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  9. I love this so much! Remembering the small moments. My kids will often bring up small moments from their childhoods that I have NO memory of. It’s fascinating to hear.

    And I’ve also read that vacation memories stand out from childhood because you are doing something out of your routine. So even though you had been to Destin before, you had never taken the side trip to Panama City Beach. I’m wondering if that made it so special to Ella? Plus, the chocolate chip! LOL!

    My childhood best friend goes to Destin every Fall and rents a condo on the beach. The pictures look amazing! I’ve never been to that side of Florida. She’s also the one that currently lives in Mansfield. You and I always have these connections :) XO

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    1. I agree—I don’t have much memory of the little things they find special either!

      I think you’re right! We mostly stuck to the pool and beach every day—we didn’t do much sightseeing. But that year, we actually ended up doing it on two different days. That part of Florida is beautiful—the water is ice blue and the sand is white. I hope we get to go back as a family someday.

      OMG, I love that we always have these connections! ❤️

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  14. How true! I’m often astonished at the favourite memories of my sons, 41 and 38. They are just as you described–little ordinary occurrences, random moments or conversations, tiny things that I would never have imagined would register or evoke an emotion. It’s always so thrilling (yet quietly cozy at the same time) when they speak about them.

    Your writing is always lovely, but it really shines in this post. It reflects you completely.

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    1. I love those little moments. I’m so glad she had this English essay and that it pulled that memory out of her. Thank you so much—what a compliment coming from you. ❤️

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  15. I love this writing, Kari. I love the story. I especially love this: “it is not the big planned experiences that linger for my children. It is the ordinary hours inside them.” What a perfect way of expressing what this whole essay is saying. Isn’t it such a gift when nothing dramatic happens? When we are just being with the people we love? It is especially poignant, the way you look back knowing now what is going to be coming in the future, the things that would be so hard and transformative that you couldn’t know. You make me wonder what ordinary hours I’m living now will one day feel sweet to me in the way your car ride to Destin does for you. I remember trips to my parents’ with my kids when they were young. Sometimes, I’d feel sad because of the family we no longer had and the things we’d lost, and I’d remind myself that one day, the trip I was on would be my “good old days.” Sure enough, I was right. Now I have a kind of sad longing (mixed with gratitude) for those times. Your writing evoked all of that for me. Thank you for that. It was such a treat to read it on Mother’s Day.

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    1. So I went down a bit of a rabbit hole one morning during soul homework, as I tend to do, asking why we treasure the small moments so much. Why so many of us connect more to the little things than the big ones.

      Big moments are rare, and they’re also a bit “loud.” We know we’re in them while they’re happening—birthdays, graduations, moves, losses, milestones. We show up differently, our attention sharpens, we take pictures, we mark them as important in real time.

      But I don’t think meaning is mainly built there.

      I think it’s built in repetition. In the ordinary stuff. How someone sounds on a normal Tuesday. What the drive home feels like. The rhythm of everyday care, or everyday absence.

      That’s why the little things hit so deeply later. They aren’t just background details. They’re the essence of belonging and relationship and a certain time in life.

      There’s something humbling about that. It makes it feel like meaning isn’t only happening in the big moments. It’s being created all the time in the ordinary ones, whether we notice it or not.

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      1. Absolutely, everything you’ve said here. It’s one of the hardest things for me about my daughter living so far away. I miss the ordinary moments. We get some of that. I was recently there for three weeks; I got to see and be in some of her ordinary moments. But whenever we are together, one of us is out of our ordinary. When I feel nostalgic for the past, it’s never about the big things, the milestones. It’s the shows we watched together, the games we played, the routine car rides. You have me thinking about what those things are for me now, and how I can maybe be more tuned into them. (Or maybe not. Maybe not being so dang conscious of how precious those times in the past were is part of what makes them precious in retrospect?)

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      2. “One of us is out of our ordinary”

        I understand this so much. This was how I felt when I would visit my parents when they lived far away. I was happy to be with them for the first day or two, but I was so dysregulated by not being in my own routine that it would ruin my visit.

        Back then, I didn’t understand this, so I carried guilt, shame, and even silliness for feeling homesick while visiting my parents.

        You just made me realize that it is okay. I wasn’t in my ordinary.

        Big sigh.

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  16. What a wonderful post. It is the quiet, small moments that are special memories. Lately my husband and I have been planning “big trips” with our kids for Christmas. This past year, one of my best memories was staying in one evening with my son and talking. We rented a VRBO in Hawaii. That was while my husband, daughter and DIL went on a tour to swim with manta rays. I enjoyed the quiet time alone with my son which is so rare.

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  18. I just love this post Kari. Sitting in my chair reading and remembering our family trips. The car rides. Some good, some not so good. One time I got out of the car and threatened to walk the rest of the way. You made me consider the other side of our memories. So good. Maybe you all will return someday. I just hope you have that playlist. Hugs, C

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  20. “I got to sit next to my youngest daughter and write one rainy April afternoon. That felt very special.”

    Kari, just reading that made me realize just how SPECIAL that made you (and she) feel. And that’s one of those times she will look back on and realize how blessed she was/is to have you as her parent.

    “We played music and talked the whole way there. Nothing rushed. Nothing structured. Just the four of us moving through the day together.”

    Sounded A-MAZING! Don’t you love when things play out organically and end up being the BEST?

    That final photograph of the palm trees instantly reminded me of my 20 years living in Florida.

    Thanks so much for sharing this special moment, my friend. Very much enjoyed and put a smile on my face :)

    Have a fabulous rest of your week! X

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    1. I love this so much. I’m so lucky to have her in my life. I’ve learned so much from her (and I think she’d say the same about me). It was such a great trip that year, which makes me think we were meant to have that be our last family trip—or at least our last one just the four of us. Which is probably why we remember it so fondly.

      We took that trip in Seaside, Florida, where The Truman Show was filmed.

      Thank you for reading, my friend. I hope you have a great week as well! 😘❤️

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  21. It’s never anything you planned that is remembered, is it? We did an epic road trip when I was in high school (four national parks, endless miles in the car) and my two big memories are when my mom didn’t stop to get gas when we had half a tank and we nearly ran out of gas and my dad was SO PISSED and when my dad almost hit a bear on the road in Yellowstone. LOL. Imagine all the money and effort my parents put into that trip for me to just remember those two things.

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  23. Lovely. Sometimes the most simple things create the most expansive memories.

    Oh, and Covid really effed things up in a big way in terms of robbing us of togetherness, though thankfully we survived it.

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  24. I can definitely appreciate this moment. The car ride. Often the simplest of memories become our core memories. I sometimes whine about days being total slogs and routine and things but that is when life actually happens- those little moments of just… being? living? Existing?.. not sure where I’m going with this. Anywho, a wonderful story.

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    1. I really like how you said that, especially about the simple moments becoming the core ones. It’s so true, even when it doesn’t feel like it in the middle of the routine. I think those in-between, ordinary stretches are where so much of life actually settles in and becomes memory later.

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  25. I was going through my emails and I didn’t see this! Sorry for the delay! I really love this. Obviously, this simple slice of life made quite an impression on Ella and I love that she remembers it. Just the interaction and how it felt. She didn’t remember a shiny new toy or a big event. That gives testament to you and Mike. What an awesome moment.

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    1. She’s very much like you in that way—she remembers so many distinct things. She’ll be the memory keeper in our family, just like you are in yours ❤️

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  26. “The moments we think are just in between are often the ones that stay.” That is such a profound observation. And so true. The things I remember from my childhood are snippets, small things, not the big stuff. I mean, I can recall some of the big stuff, but the stuff which plays in my head unasked for – that’s all the little moments.

    As to the experience itself, it sounds like you made some beautiful family memories during that year – ones that your daughter treasures as much as you do 💓

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  27. I loved reading this.

    It’s amazing how our memory works. Sometimes it’s the most mundane moments that create the biggest and best memories. How sweet is your Ella? very.

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