The first afternoon we spent in Hood River, Oregon, I was struck by how few children there were. Somehow, taking four children EVERYWHERE has made me very sensitive to how child-friendly places and people are. In another life, I would like to write a book on traveling with children because all the guidebooks I am using are for people without children, apparently. Hood River is similar to a ski town, only for windsurfers. And I think there are probably fewer children who windsurf than there are who ski. Perhaps someone can dispel my myth about windsurfing not really being a family sport, an idea largely put in place most likely by the fact that my aunt and uncle who don’t have children have been chasing the wind for as many years as I can remember. They live and work out of a Chinook that is parked in the part of the world with the with the most ideal combination of water and wind. This usually translates into Baja in the winter and the summer on the Gorge. Before I ever saw the Columbia River Gorge for myself, I heard it referred to by my uncle who was usually “headed to the Gorge” when the temperatures became unbearable in Arkansas. They are probably here right now and lest you think I am a shameful niece for having made plans to meet them, let me explain that this simply is not the way things are usually done in my dad’s family. (Of course, surely it goes without saying that these windsurfing gypsies are on my dad’s side of the family.) In fact, cell phones have sort of ruined the mystique for me about how Loibners (my maiden name) track one another down. Someone recently asked my mom how she ever did all those crazy trips with my dad before cell phones and she said that she never worried about finding him, because he always found her. When we were with him on a trip and he was taking off for his daily dose of adventure (ahem-like today…we got a text message from him on the top of Mt. Elbert this morning. All it said was “on Elbert.”), we never had to worry about where he would end up. Even without a very specific meeting place, he would find us. “I’ll meet you in Aspen,” he would say. And then there we’d be sitting in a park or a restaurant in Aspen and in he would walk, just as casual as you please. Or we would be walking through a little tourist downtown area of somewhere, say Crested Butte, and we would hear him whistle. We all knew that whistle. My brother, sister and I can still look at each other in a crowd and know we’ve heard Daddy’s whistle. For many years that is how we have known that he is nearby.

My dad comes by both his impeccable sense of direction and his tracking abilities honestly. And sometimes, these findings are a result of effort, but often they just seem to happen without explanation. Several years ago, my parents actually ran into my dad’s parents in Juneau, Alaska. Just walking down the street. My parents were on an anniversary cruise and my grandparents were backpacking up and down the coast of Alaska on the ferries, because you can ride the ferries for free if you are a senior citizen AND they have free coffee. Come on, what else do you need? After their meeting, I know my dad was forlorn to be returning to his stuffy cruise ship cabin while his parents were sleeping on a ferry deck under the stars, but he did marry my mother. And she’s certainly made her share of compromises. For a girl who was raised with a maid who came three times a week, she can certainly be a trooper. She spent seven nights in a pop up camper with me and my four children and she held her own just fine.

There are many more stories of family members on my dad’s side running into one another while on vacation. I think once my grandparents were picking berries on the side of the road in Oregon somewhere and my uncle saw them and stopped to say hello. I can’t remember the details of that one, but I swear it’s true. Also classic is the time Taido and I were sitting at our kitchen table in Seattle and he says, “That looks like your grandparents walking up our front steps!” And when I opened the door, my grandmother exclaimed, “We found you without even calling to get directions!“ Classic.

So it won’t surprise me if the next time I go into town for groceries or to do laundry, I run into my aunt and uncle. They‘ll have no trouble spotting me. I’m the only girl in town NOT wearing board shorts and a bikini top, and if that’s not enough…well there is a parade of four children behind me. Give a hollar if you see us!