There's something very serene about driving through the night. When I lived in Tokyo, I heard a sermon by the Rabbi on Yom Kippur who quoted Franz Kafka (I believe) on the notion of the "night journey."
You have to go through a dark period (multiple) in your life in order to come out stronger and more alive on the other side. At that point, I thought about the many overnight train trips I had taken in Europe.
Now, I think about the change in distance and time as it relates to where the precious cargo I am ferrying goes to sleep and wakes up.
We were up in Albany this past weekend for the kick-off to the Sukkot holiday. Historically, we've flown there via Southwest, a process that takes exactly 4 hours door to door.
However, with Calanit over 2, the cost of the trip has gone up by 50% and we decided to give it a whirl by driving. Figuring it would be easier to drive while the kids were asleep, we left Thurs. evening at 7pm on the way there. We arrived at 1.30am.
On the way back, we left at 8.20pm and got back home at 2.30am Monday morning (that would be this morning.)
A few cups of coffee, a Red Bull, (a hot chocolate for Tamar) and we made it.
The kids were great troopers. Calanit had a tougher time than Erez and both Tamar and I are tired, but so far, I would judge it a success (we defintely could bring more stuff more easily) and it added only about 5 hours in toto.
There's much less traffic at night so we covered the 360 miles each way pretty quickly.
Our own little "night journey" took us across a few states but also marked a rite of passage for our family...our first major road trip for the 4 of us.
As the kids (and Tamar) slept, I had time to think....this is fatherhood.
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