Road trips are the best.  I love them like I love breakfast burritos, and if you have seen me in nothing but a speedo lately you can tell by my chubby (and highly exotic) frame how much I love to gobble down eggs, bacon, and cheese that have been tucked neatly into a delicious bed of floury tortilla.  I am a road trip addict.  The longer the car drive for me, the better.  There is nothing like locking a bunch of folks into a car and forcing them to spend time together blazing a path down the open road.  I have heard it said that some people hate long car trips.  I don't understand why everyone doesn't embrace road trips like a life sized teddy bear made out of cashmere and kitten eye lashes.  What is there not to like?  The great music, the deep conversations, the road-side diners, and the passing landscape can be, for me, a spiritual experience.  And to be certain that eating any special from an all night truck stop restaurant can lend itself to an intense and profound spiritual moment.  There was once a truck top in Wright, Wyoming that served really suspicious looking Monte Carlo Sandwiches.  I, of course, had to eat one.  My insides exploded like the Death Star.  While I watched myself twitch convulse in the bathroom of the truck stop for a bit, I decided to visit Heaven for a while.  Heavens cool, I think you are going to like it.  Especially the thousands of Cool Whip fountains they have there...those are a really nice touch.  Don't worry if you don't like Cool Whip, you probably aren't going there anyway.  Cool Whip is the food of the Saints...and another product that keeps me looking like I have eaten a Kardashian.

For many years I would take yearly 13 hour road trips to Vegas with a group of friends.  Those trips were a blast.  Not just because of where we were headed ( thats not to say I don't like Vegas.  I really do.  You give me a Gin and Tonic, a fun blackjack dealer, and a belly full of yummy food and I will be as content as Anderson Cooper at a telethon)  but because of the amount of time we would all be forced to spend with each other in the vehicle.  It wasn't so much the drive out to Vegas that I enjoyed the most.  A lot of that time was spent talking about how much money we were going to win, how many celebrities we were going to meet, and how the Casino owner was going to "comp" our crew of fellass with a luxury suite when they would catch a gander of us and our visible and flowing aura of machismo.  The drive out to Sin City is full of excitement and hope of what crazy adventures are awaiting us.

The drive back is something very different.  Because the trip never quite lives up to all of the hype that we produced for it, the vibe for the car ride home is much more somber and serious.  Gone is the excitement of the destination.  People are grouchier and more apt to stare at their watches and wonder outloud why in the "Holy Hell" did we decide to drive out anyway.  I loved to embrace that energy with silliness and conversation.  I always thought that if I could make those car ride homes entertaining than I would be able to handle any kind of crowd when performing.  It usually worked.  I am not skilled at many things, (aside from filling out the aforementioned speedo) but one thing I am good at is changing the mood of a given room. 

So, for the first half of the 13 hours on the return trip home I would make it my goal to make it as fun as possible.  It usually was.  Sure people got sick of me.  Hell I would get sick of me.  But it was better than people staring out their windows acting like they were being driven to their own execution, or even worse,  like they they were being taken to a viewing of the remake of Clash of the Titans which is the suckest suckhole of a suckass movie ever to suck on the big screen.  My God....it was bad....like Spoiled Mayo on a piece of moldy bread bad.  The second half of the car trip would be spent talking about things that were profound and meaningful to all of us.  It takes a certain amount of forced time together to make a group of guys to start sharing things that they truly believe.  I learned as much from my traveling companions during those few hours of talking than I had through the many years I had known them before.

For me the journey to and from Las Vegas were much more important then the destination.  I would say that there are no long road trips out there that would ever make me feel like the journey was secondary to the place we were headed...well except for one:

The one I took today.

Today me and the whole Fama-lama-ding-dong (translated from Roedelese mean: Family) took a little road trip into the deep center of the Colorado Rocky Mountains to take part in a seven year family tradition: Adams Camp.  For those of you new to my blog scene, Adams Camp is a camp that is woven together with love for children with disabilities and their families.  It runs for much of the summer outside of Winter Park, Colorado, and for us has become the place we retreat to every year to calm the raging seas of our hearts.  I have only been in a brief time and I can already feel the toxic emotions that I schlep around with me start to melt. 

I cannot believe that we have been coming here for seven years.  This is a place of true respite for us, as it has been for many families like us.  This is a place of true healing, like it has been for many families like us.  This is a place were we have been witness to miracles, like it has been for many families like us.  It is a place where I breathe easier and feel more connected to my family...it is also a place where I can let the weight of our struggle slide off of my back.  It could not have come at a better time for us.  Our journey with autism has been particulary hard on us the last couple of months...at least it has been for me.  My wife is a rock.  I am a sponge.  I let all the negative crap infect me.  I am tired of people (whether it be at school, on the playground, at church, or where ever we might be discount and write off my sweet boy. I amazed at despite how amazing he is doing how many doubters there exist in the world for him.  If I had the power I would make them all watch Clash of The Titans over and over....

On our car trip through the winding and mountainous roads of Colorado I was not focused on the beautiful scenery that passed by my window.  Nor was I enthralled by the perfect CD Mixes I made just for the drive.  I wasn't even trying to make my wife life.  I was impatient for the journey to end.  I wanted to be at our destination.   I could not wait any longer to get up here.  To hell with the journey...I need to be at the destination!

Tonight we sat in a room full of other parents of Autistic children who walk the same path we do.  It was a nodding head convention.  Each time a parent spoke about their child the other parents nodded in complete understanding.  We all shared the same experiences, the same joys, and the same wounds.  Some people come from across the country, some from just a few miles away...but we all share the same voice when we shout to remind the world:

Our Children Are Not Broken.  So kindly quit acting like they are. 


Right now I am sitting in a quiet cabin.  If I listen carefully enough I can hear the gentle snores of my family coming from their rooms. I am for the first time, in a long time, at peace.  Despite my blood feud with Mother Nature and all of her germy, buggy, razor teethed minions, I am happy to be back here, a year later in the wild.  The journey to get back here over the past year has been a long one....but for at least tonight the journey does not matter.

The only thing that matters is the destination.  And I am so deeply grateful that a destination like this exists.


It's going to be a long and wonderful week.  It is time for some sleep.

Goodnight readers.




Goodnight Mountains.


Goodnight Roedel Boys. 


Sigh.

Peace.



LAST YEARS ADAMS CAMP DAY ONE ENTRY