A detailed vacation itinerary. A solid collection of road trip snacks. Nothing but beautiful weather, the open road, and a radio station that plays a mix of hits from yesterday and today.
This is your sign to take a road trip with your mom.
You’ve probably taken a few road trips with her already – a long time ago, when you were just a kid. (You’ll reminisce about these trips at length, or perhaps argue about the details of what happened when.) In recent years, you’ve probably also taken trips with the entire family – your children, siblings, nieces and nephews, parents – the whole gang. Big family reunion style trips can be fun and a bit chaotic, but there’s something different about taking a trip with just your mom.
You don’t have to do things the way your dad would want them – everyone adhering to a strict schedule. You can run a little “late” for things, and it’s okay. 
You don’t have to stick to kid-friendly restaurants or even eat meals at conventional times. Wine and a charcuterie board can definitely count as a real dinner.
You can purchase what you want at the gift shop without a husband rolling his eyes and saying that you “don’t need that.” Frivolous spending is strongly encouraged.
You can take a slow walk through the museum, soaking up every bit of trivia from the audio tour recording, throwing pitying glances at the families trying to wrangle young children to keep their hands off the exhibits. 
You can splurge on a fancy hotel, and enjoy having someone else make the bed for a change. You can marvel over the pillow mints and the flowers in the bathroom and the plush bathrobes hanging in the closet. You should definitely eat chocolate in bed while watching reality TV.
You can strike up conversations with random strangers. Though you might (still) get embarrassed when your mom starts oversharing stories from your childhood with them. 
You can eat too much dessert, justifying it from all of the extra steps you took that day.
You can stay up really late and be silly. You can laugh too hard about things that really aren’t that funny. You might even have to shush your mom when she comments on a stranger’s appearance a little too loudly.
You can take way too many photos of every single pretty plant that you come across and Airdrop them to each other. (You might have to remind your mom how Airdrop works, and that’s okay.)
No matter what you end up doing or where you end up going, if the opportunity arises for you to take a road trip with your mom, it’s important that you say yes.
