Spontaneity: An Under-sung Virtue

The story of an impromptu (possibly irresponsible) road trip

Photo by Victor Rodriguez on Unsplash

I had seen the Classical Conversations homeschool group announcement earlier and had thought it might be fun. But I didn’t think it could be an actual possibility until my husband texted the family with, “far and away the dumbest idea I’ve thrown out there.”

McKay’s Books, a beloved used bookstore in our area, was celebrating its 50th anniversary by sponsoring the “Ultimate McKay’s Road Trip.” Anyone able to visit all five of its locations from Mebane, North Carolina to Nashville, Tennessee on Tuesday, July 9th would receive $800 of store credit and smaller prizes at each stop. Since they planned to open their stores early at 8 AM and close at 10 PM, this provided fourteen hours in which to make the nine hour drive plus five hours of margin for stops and possible traffic. Totally doable!

Jason had spent most of the day thinking about it. And the more I thought about it, the more excited I got. After all, we’d been making the eleven hour trip to Maryland to visit family for nearly twenty years. And the combined prize money of $1,600 in store credit would go a long way in buying homeschool materials, classics we had yet to own, and even Christmas gifts. Plus the whole thing smacked of the spontaneity I’d had as a teenager.

Something in the borderline-irresponsibility of making a huge commitment on the spur of the moment smelled like adventure, and I found myself entranced.

But what about our schedules? Jason had work, and I had a homeschooling orientation on Tuesday.

What about our animals? 50+ critters needed feeding, milking, and watering.

What about our kids? Wouldn’t they feel neglected without us? Would they be able to hold down the homestead without killing one another?

This is where our older children came to the rescue. It is a beautiful thing to have trustworthy teenagers who can drive themselves places, do chores without my management, and handle making their own meals. We also felt we could mitigate any inter-sibling conflict by taking our two youngest children along for the ride.

As crazy as it sounded, we were going to do this.

Photo by Miguel Bruna on Unsplash

Jason called in a PTO day. I had my two eldest act as my proxies at orientation. We made the decision to take on the ultimate McKay’s road trip challenge around 6:30 pm, and by 8:45 pm we were on the road to Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Yes, we were actually going!

I hadn’t done anything this spontaneous in years. I typically like to dream about things for a while first to fully enjoy them. But as I sat shotgun in our 2012 Honda Odyssey, I felt like Ulysses himself out to discover new lands and treasure. This was real-life Ticket to Ride, and I was so looking forward to making it all the way with my husband and two youngest.

We arrived at our hotel room (thankfully purchased with credit card points rather than the credit card itself) at 3:00 in the morning and collapsed into bed. Four hours later, we woke up the kids, ate breakfast, and made our way to stop #1: Winston-Salem.

I’d felt slightly bummed that we hadn’t been able to make it all the way to Mebane the night before (about an hour or so east of Winston-Salem) as it would have been most efficient to start the road trip from the very end of the route. But considering we’d made up our minds last minute and didn’t want get any fewer hours of sleep, the situation was what it was. But what it was wasn’t bad. The line had a few hundred people in it, but the McKay’s workers kept it moving. They gave us waivers to sign and nifty little passports with the store’s history and location pages which they stamped for us.

Our first stop completed, we drove an hour to Mebane. That’s when things started to get interesting.

Apparently, I wasn’t the only one who thought starting at the end of the route would be the most efficient way to take on the road trip challenge. Cars lined the shoulder of the interstate well before the exit ramp close to the store. Rather than wait in traffic, we decided to take the next exit, double back to McKay’s on back roads, and park three quarters of a mile away; it would be much quicker to walk than wait.

When we got to the store, our hearts sank; the line stretched on for forever. Someone walking back to their car said Mebane had actually opened at 6:30 in the morning, and she had waited two hours in line.

Two hours?! We hadn’t factored that kind of wait time into our calculations!

This was definitely going to eat into that five hours of margin we thought we’d had. Then a very helpful thing happened. Someone leaving the premises announced that the line was for those signing their waivers and getting passports. Those who already had passports could go into the store to get them stamped.

Oh, what mercy and rapture! Jason had been an unwitting genius to get the hotel room next to the second-to-last stop after all! We went into the store and saw a much shorter line. I wanted to verify it was actually the line we were supposed to wait in when the lady at the table reached out for our passports, stamped them, and told us we could pick up our T-shirts at the other desk. I blinked in shock feeling simultaneous favor from the heavens and mild guilt at having skipped the line. But there we were, finished with stop #2.

During the next five hours to Knoxville, we smiled as we saw cars with painted windows saying things like, “McKay’s Road Trip or Bust!” We laughed trying to picture the McKay’s board meeting which must have taken place months earlier:

“How many passports, T-shirts, mugs, and posters do you think we should print off for this event?”

“Maybe like 500? I mean, how many people are actually crazy enough to do this? And on a Tuesday, no less?”

“I dunno. That might be over-shooting it a bit. But better safe than sorry.”

Little did McKay’s know just how massive their devoted fan base was — particularly for $800 of credit a head.

Knoxville proved to be a repeat of Mebane. Once again, traffic was backed up as if Taylor Swift had come to town. Once again, we parked far away. Once again, I felt mild despair at the sight of the line. And once again, we were spared from having to wait forever in it.

Not wanting to stand in the heat unnecessarily, I asked someone if there was a shorter line for people not getting their passports for the first time — and there was! Those who were willing to forfeit their mug and first $50 of store credit could get a sticker in their passport to prove they’d been to Knoxville and return to the road sooner. It was a loss of $100, but it seemed worth it if it helped us reach our final destination on time. We took the stickers and thanked God for the second miracle of the day. (We later heard about twenty people were treated for heat exhaustion before the fire department shut down the Knoxville location.)

Now we only had two stops left: Chattanooga and Nashville. And as we pulled up to the Chattanooga McKay’s exit, I anticipated a long line.

Since traffic was not moving quickly, I grabbed our passports, hopped out of the car, and made my way through some bushes to the store to grab a spot in line while Jason waited on the interstate to take the exit. As I’d figured, the river of people wound well around the building and down the driveway. But there was a second line in the back parking lot. It seemed much shorter. So I took my place and waited for the family to catch up.

Eventually they found me, and we dutifully waited our turn to reach the ticket gal. But my concern rose as the time wore on; I wasn’t confident we could make it to Nashville before 10 PM if we had to wait long in either line.

Then someone gave us some good news; Nashville had decided to keep its doors open until midnight! This gave us some fresh motivation. So did the generosity of the McKay’s worker. Not only did she give us the promised $250 apiece of store credit for making it to our fourth stop, but she also restored the $50 credits we’d forfeited at the Knoxville location.

Tired and sweaty, we headed for our final stop. We arrived at the back of yet another long line wrapped around the McKay’s building at 10:30 PM. Praise the Lord, they’d extended the deadline! And with the line moving steadily, I felt encouraged. Surely, we could get to the front before midnight.

Now at the end of their destination, the weary people happily milled about, taking selfies in front of the store signs and sharing their experiences from earlier — but this time without the worry of having to reach any more stops.

I felt my heart start to beat with excitement as we rounded the bend of the building. The moment we all had waited for since we’d decided to go on this adventure was fast approaching. When we got close enough to see them, I felt surprised to find the McKay’s workers so gracious and even enthusiastic over an hour after they were supposed to go home for the evening. I thought for sure they’d all be zombies by that time, but perhaps I was just projecting what I felt having been in the car for over 1,000 miles on only four hours of sleep.

Finally, after reviewing all the stamps and stickers in our passports, they gave us our golden tickets and even added more credit for the mugs and posters we didn’t get. (Rumor had it, they’d run out.)

We were exhausted, but we’d completed the challenge and won the prize — primarily because of God’s grace. If we’d gotten tied up in Mebane or Knoxville for multiple hours, I doubt we could have made it to Nashville even before midnight.

Unfortunately, we did not live in Nashville and needed to make the 2+ hour drive back to the homestead. We listened to a comedian on my phone to help us stay awake and safely rolled up our gravel driveway around 3 AM for the second night in a row.

Sure, this road trip was crazy and spontaneous, but God lined up all the details. And though Tolkien was right in that “Adventures make you late for dinner,” adventures also make life more momentous. I’m thankful to have captured these moments with my family. I think we’ll remember this adventure for years to come.

I also think everyone may be getting books for Christmas.