Taking a car trip with Oscar and guest child, Viktoria for spring break. We had only two agenda items when we planned this drive and that was to hit Mammoth Cave National Park and the Parthenon in Nashville. We’ve passed Mammoth Cave for many years driving home to the south from up north and have never been able to stop and see it. We would always be hurrying to a holiday or seeing family and this never seemed like something we could take the time to do. Well, something seems to grow in your mind in importance when you have to forgo it for a long time. I became determined to do Mammoth Cave!
We also wanted to see the intact and decorated Parthenon that Nashville had built after seeing the real Parthenon in Athens. It’s a fabulous ruin at the top of the Acropolis, but I thought that seeing what it would have looked like in the time of Ancient Athens would be really amazing. And the huge Athena statue was amazing. Seeing a restorer gently cleaning their plaster casts of the Parthenon marbles just felt strange, but they’re important because the British Museum probably won’t ever let them leave London.
We added things as we drove past them or the kids indicated some interest, such as an MLS match in Cincinnati on our way home that Oscar wanted to see. Viktoria wanted to do some book shopping after we hit an Ollie’s and found cheap books. Jungle Jim’s International Market got added by John and I added some people that we were driving past that we hadn’t seen in years.
This trip was a perfect example of how you start an experience with one set of expectations and end up finding that totally different things made the trip memorable. We set up this entire road trip around two things that we had expected to enjoy. Mammoth Cave was not as exciting as we expected it to be because it’s a dry cave and there are no stalactites and stalagmites. We were expecting all the pretty crystals and amazing drama of something like Ruby Falls, but we got the world’s largest cave system instead. And the Nashville Parthenon, while great to finally see and get the kids interested in Mythology stuff, lacked any feeling of sacred wonder that accompanies the actual Parthenon. Plus, I should never pay more to see a replica in Nashville, TN than I paid to go see the real thing in Athens!
The added things were the most enjoyable for all of us and that was okay. We had a great trip and we just let go of our expectations of things. We went with the stuff that brought us joy and while we still engaged in the planned events, we found ourselves liking the fossil digging at Ohio Falls State Park and stopping by Half Price Book Store to find series that we were all working on obtaining. So, drop your expectations and go with the flow sometimes. The weight of things working out drops away and you are left with just being able to focus on the present experience.