Travels with my kids - The Boy

Inasmuch as the stunningly patient and mighty fine SML and I had three children, today's installment of "Travels with my kids" will be the last.  This features the Boy.  As is often the case with the youngest child, they tend to benefit from tired parents, busier older siblings, etc.  So the Boy has had more than a few trips with Dad.

Our first big trip together was back in August 2002.  Six years earlier, when the Boy was almost a year old, SML and I took one of our getaway trips to New York City.  Our good friends were living in Connecticut and had just had twins, so we figured why not go visit them and make their lives all the more chaotic.  We had a great time and during that trip we found ourselves in Newport, Rhode Island.  While there, we found a big crowd watching a bunch of kids flying all over the place on the skate boards.  We learned we'd stumbled upon the second X Games.  It was fun to watch but I didn't give it much more thought.

Fast forward six years to the summer of 2002 and we've got a six year old who has gone native as a Southern Californian.  His skate board was his life and we'd caught a little bit of the X Games in San Diego a couple of years earlier so I got it in my head that it would be some kind of awesome to take the Boy to Philadelphia for Summer X Games 8.  And that is precisely what we did.  We flew out to Philadelphia and Mother United treated us very well.  We stayed downtown.  We took the subway (the Boy's first!) to and from the First Union Center for the couple of days we were there for the Games.  Even then, the Boy knew how to work the charm he'd been born with. He became completely obsessed with the one of the mountain boards that was on display and he wound up spending hours at one of the vendor's selling them.  He got all sorts of time on their ramp and learned a few things that he tried to put in practice when we got home (of course, he got one those boards for his birthday the next month).  We had a great time watching gravity being defied, sweating in the humid, Philly summer, and taking in all that is Philly.

We ate our way through the Reading Terminal Market but I'll never forget our dinner in Chinatown.  We found a restaurant that looked amazing and where English was merely a suggestion.  Once again, the Boy turned on the charm with the waitresses.  Our order wound up being interpreted as "Surprise us!"  The Boy was a champ, trying each and every thing they brought out to us. The waitstaff and the chefs came out and seemed to get a huge kick out of it.  I'm still not certain of what they served us, but hey, neither of us died that weekend.

I'll never forget the flight back though.  It was only eleven months after 9/11 and if you think the TSA is inept now, it was an unmitigated train wreck back then.  Each day, rules and requirements were changing and it was also the days of the dreaded "SSS" printed on your boarding pass.  Upon check-in, I noticed that the Boy had gotten the imprint on his boarding pass.  Knowing it was random, I couldn't get him reassigned.  This was also when secondary gate checks were the norm.  So when we got up to pre-board, a couple of the TSA goons stood at attention at the jetway, all sorts of ready to pull aside the poor random selectees.  Upon seeing taking the Boy's boarding pass with the "SSS" on it, the she/male from the TSA announces that the Boy has to be taken to the side for further inspection and no, I am not allowed to come along.  I'm sorry, what did you say, SheBeast?  I grabbed the Boy's hand and said he'd be going nowhere without me.  Shim said then you aren't getting on the plane.  I informed her/him that under no circumstances was my child being patted down without me being there.  Several passengers joined me in a loud protest as to the ludicrousness of what they were trying to do.  The United agent/angel at the gate intervened seeing that I was about ready to lose a vital organ and told the TSA dolt that as the parent I was in fact allowed to accompany my child and did the TSA really want to take the blame for delaying the flight.  Shim relented and another goon came over and did a cursory pat down of the Boy.  They quickly discovered that his Legos and Pop-Tarts were harmless (well, that Pop-Tarts are harmless is a dubious claim at best, but that's another post) and we were on our way down the Jetway and on our way to LAX.  An eventful end to an otherwise awesome trip.

The Boy and I would go on to X Games 10 and 11.  Easy to do since both were in LA.  For Games 10, we went fancy and hung out at the Ritz Carlton in Pasadena.  It all came full circle for Games 11, when my friend with whom we'd seen X Games 2 in Rhode Island brought his twins to LA and the five of us did the Games.  It was a lot of fun.

So, there have been lots of other travels with my kids.  It's been to chronicle some of the highlights of the trips we've been able to share.  I'm a better man because of the time I've gotten with my children.  Selfishly, I should spend more time with them - I'd be all the better for it!