It happens to the best of us as we age, suddenly we find ourselves acting more and more like our parents. The same words start spewing forth out of our mouths, the same mannerisms, lots of similarities.

But not everything we do is like our parents. Back when I was growing up my parents planned out everything! A day at the local amusement park took a month of planning, first tickets had to be ordered by mail to get a few bucks discount, then you had to have a trip ticket draw up by Triple A, to avoid all road construction. And on the day of the planned outing everyone was up at 6am packing and getting ready. It always made the trip seem like something extra special, even though it was the same park we went to yearly.

This is where Russ and I differ, from my family at least. On Saturday night we decided to take Ariana to an amusement park (David ended up going to the beach with my parents afterall). We got online and looked up a few of the local (western Pennsylvania) parks, we check prices and park hours and narrowed our choices down to two, Delgrosso’s Amusement Park in Tipton, PA or Idlewild Park in Ligoneer, PA.

Yesterday morning we woke up at 9am and decided to get ready to go. We decided on Delgrosso’s as it’s closer and a smaller park – thus a shorter day. We got ready, gathered up what we needed, and suddenly changed our minds. We checked two more parks on the internet, eastern PA parks and quickly dismissed them, as we had no “puppy sitter”. And decided once again that Delgrosso’s was our destination. We put the dogs in the garden shed with all their toys, beds and all that, their little home away from home. (and it keeps them from having to be in their kennels all day.

Then we set off. About 30 minutes into our drive, we changed our destination and headed for Ligoneer, and Idlewild Park, not quite two hours from home. No map, no directions, just our (hopefully good) memories of the last time we drove down there.

We got lost. Well, not really, we just had a disagreement over whether we needed 30 west or east. Russ choose, but he choose wrong. Good thing we have smart phones, as a quick look up of the park website gave us a map and we got back on track.

We reached the park at 1pm, my mom would have had a fit had it been a trip she planned. All my life, we’ve always been the ones waiting in line for the park to open. But we were fine with it, we skipped around the park from one end to the other, letting purchase drugs online our acomplia weight loss daughter pick our path and what she wanted to do. Another thing my mom wouldn’t have been able to handle. She always had a route planned so that we got to see everything in the park in our alloted time. But her routes always left everyone exhausted halfway through the day because it was rush, rush, rush…

We had planned to leave at 6pm, but Ariana wasn’t ready, so six came and went, and we kept on riding. Well, at least until Ari drug me on ‘the spider’ right after eating a big bowl of ice cream. That put me out of riding shape after that, and as Russ doesn’t ride anything that goes in circles, 90% of the rides were out of the question. So we let her pick one more place to go (luckily, it was the ball pit in Jumpin Jungle) and we headed there. It was almost time for the park to close, so she played around until they shut it down and then we headed out.

We missed our turn off once again. Something that would have had my parents driving in circles until they found the road they were looking for, but no big deal for us. We were on route 66, we knew where it ended up so we stuck with it. Then as we saw signs for things that were closer to us, we changed routes and just went with it. Which ironically got us home in under an hour and a half, when it had taken us over 2 hours to get there. But then this is how Russ and I have always traveled. We never have a set plan, or a map route marked out. We just get in the car and drive, hoping for the best.

So I guess as far as traveling goes, we will never turn into my parents. Now if only my father’s voice would stop coming out of my mouth when I’m yelling at my children!