Travels with My Family

Patricia Morley is professor emerita of English and Canadian Studies at
Concordia University. She is the author of several books, including The
Mountain Is Moving: Japanese Women’s Lives, Kurlek and Margaret
Laurence: The Long Journey Home.

This longish, peripatetic tale draws on the archetypal troubles of
parents setting out for a vacation with two small children, four
bicycles, and a cat. The children dream of warm beaches, giant water
slides, and perhaps Disneyland. Their parents, inspired by the phrase
“off the beaten track,” have other ideas. News of an impending
hurricane heading for Maine, their first stop, sends them to a hardware
store for jugs of water, batteries, and candles. Everyone else seems to
be driving away. The family survives the night and finds, the next
morning, that “the ocean has gone back to where it was supposed to
be.”

After the hurricane, they try an island in Georgia, where the children
get jobs helping fishers get needlefish out of nets. They fail to notice
the incoming tide and only make it back to shore with difficulty. Father
is proud of his basket of crabs, and the narrator congratulates herself
on having saved her little brother while having a “real adventure”
of her own. The next few days are too quiet for Father, so they head for
Okefenokee, “the trembling land” where an alligator lies basking on
the shore.

Salt Spring Island has its own perils—the smallest child is nearly
swept out to sea. But Father’s appetite for adventure remains fresh
and they try Mexico, followed by the Carlsbad Caverns. February finds
them back home, planning their next vacation. Travels with My Family
will amuse children and those who read to them. Highly recommended.