I just came back from a road trip through the southern reaches of Colorado. I traveled with my daughter and two grandchildren to Mesa Verde National Park and the Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve.
The title of this essay refers to the epithets the children used: Dumb-Dumb Gramma and Mean Mommy. They were angry during a fair percentage of the road trip because there was no internet access and they could not access their screens. They were appalled that there was no reliable Wi-Fi in National Parks.
We tried to substitute the wonders of nature for the wonders of computer games and Wi-fi. We had mixed results. The 8-year-old girl agreed to a hike down a steep trail, to see the Cliff Dwellings in Mesa Verde. Her 10-year-old brother deferred. He may or may not have had a touch of altitude sickness. He kept saying he was tired. All right, he did fall asleep while watching the short film they show at the museum at Mesa Verde to introduce you to the Ancestral Pueblo people who built the cliff dwellings. So there was some possibility he was overly affected by the altitude of the National Park, which ranges from 6,800 feet to 8,570 feet.
Then there was a successful foray into the Great Sand Dunes. The kids were happy enough to run down the trail and play in the wet sand that lines a shallow rivulet of water that runs in front of the looming dunes. There was also an interlude of three hours, where the kids were happy to indulge in the hot springs in Pagosa Springs, Colo.
Otherwise, there was a lot of discontent with driving through remote rural areas. As in, telling me I was a dumb-dumb and their mother was mean. This is way more difficult than it was driving through the same terrain forty years ago when my daughter was a child, which was before the invention of computer games and endless eye candy on screens. Just saying.
A warning to other parents and grandparents: a road trip with kids is more challenging than it used to be. You might want to book hotels that guarantee an internet connection or bring lots of DVDs you can play on a laptop. The kids got so bored they even asked for books to read! So the trip was a success insofar as the kids got emotionally involved in Mesa Verde, Great Sand Dunes and the hot springs.
Next time, we may have to plan our hotels and driving times more carefully. Until then, we may have to deal with the epithets of Dumb-Dumb Gramma and Mean Mommy. But it could have been worse. We are all on speaking terms… and the kids even said they’d be willing to go on another road trip!
Dr. Janet Tamaren 