Perch. I call this a safe place to sit and take in the view. For Cleo, this is her spot in the truck. It’s pretty perfect how she chose to sit up here instead of crowd us at our feet. We have a handful of long drives on this adventure and we’d like to all feel like we have a little bit of space to stretch out our toes.

Moving on the road allows us to pick a single spot to take in multiple views:  a front row seat that moves us from state to state to state. We have driven through flatlands, across bridges and up mountains. Driving through the mountains is a special opportunity. We see giant trees bursting through the ground, clear water streams shimmering in the sunlight, and the clouds, we marvel at how they hang full around the rocky slopes as if they will burst any moment (photos taken near Butte, MT).

All seems to be begging for us to roam and explore and it makes us indecisive about what we should do next.

The same is true of the road signs. They all are trying to get our attention too. We just passed the exit telling us we can go to Glacier National Park if we want to pull off of our original route. We haven’t checked that off the list and here we are so close, we could. The kids point out a national forest campground and ask about staying. There is so much opportunity everywhere.  When in Mt. Rainier, we even had to choose against visiting Paradise and nothing about that seemed right.

Sometimes a perch gives you the time you need to take in your surroundings.. .to fully absorb where you are or where you want to go. But there are all sorts of distractions when you can sit and watch for a while. It can make you lethargic or worse yet, wrecked with indecision if you let it.

Having a course set is important because you know what you are aiming for. We told our kids what the plan was for our drive across the country from the beginning. However, being willing to wander can be equally important because it may lead you to reset your direction or better yet, lead you to make better plans. We make adjustments along the way as we discover new places. We also make plans for years well past this one in hope to see the things we could not see or come back to the places where we want to stay longer. The world is so big and we are only seeing slivers of it.  We need our kids to know this.

This front row seat has taken us to some pretty amazing views so my suggestion is find your front row seat in a space that can take you somewhere to remember.