Traveling with a 12-year-old

The moan came from the back seat of the rented SUV, a sound that was both pained and resigned to the abuse yet to come. It was a really more of a bleat, the kind of noise you might hear from a wounded baby seal, clubbed on the beach and left for dead.

“I’m bored,” she said.

She’s 12 (I’m almost 13) and she was along for the ride.

My wife and I were taking our third annual Christmas trip to Northern California’s redwood forests for some daylong hikes, red wine, good food and an escape from the trappings of routine.

Last year, we’d invited my wife’s sister, who was alone in Orange County after her husband and daughter went to Ohio to visit relatives for the holidays.

This year, we were suddenly four: Me, my wife, her sister …

And the Passenger from Hell.

We lost our Internet signal just before we crossed north over the Golden Gate Bridge. She was not happy.

To pass the time, we’d tried to give her some life advice. An uncle and aunt can do that, you know. We’ve been around, both of us. We’ve seen things.

She’s a cute girl, really, she is, all 92 pounds of her, half Asian and half rural white-Ohio, who competes on her junior high school dance team. She doesn’t like school, which she dismisses as six hours of people talking.

She wants to be a model.

You know, get paid for the sashaying runway walk she already knows how to do. She talks about Victoria’s Secret a lot.

But here’s the thing: she’s only 5-foot-2.

“I’m not done growing,” she said defensively.

“Just in case, what’s your Plan B,” her mother asked. “And your Plan C.”

We were just crossing the Golden Gate Bridge.

“Look at it this way,” I offered. “If things don’t turn out, you can always jump.”

I know what you’re thinking: a little avuncular advice goes a long way.

You see, I know what it’s like to be a precocious preteen in the backseat of a car for a long road trip that seems like it will never, ever end.

And the kid did not disappoint.

“Are we, like, there yet,” she asked.

Twice.

Her mother was talking to my wife.

“I guess nobody’s listening to me.”

Actually, nobody was.

That didn’t stop her.

My wife was back to the life advice thing, a first-generation American, born in China, who, like I said, knows things.

“You should be more like Taylor Thrift,” she told her niece.

Huh?

It’s one of the things I love about being married to a foreign-born woman who only learned English in high school.

What she says cracks me up.

One day, we were driving through the countryside and she was making some observations about the unfortunate souls who lived there.

She wanted to call them country bumpkins.

But she called them something else: country pumpkins.

It was beautiful, actually. Bumpkin is now a retired word, rarely used.

But not country pumpkin, which I have officially adopted into my slang lexicon, and I think you should, too.

But not Taylor Thrift, which sounds like a millennial hipster on a budget.

There is a lot of California north of San Francisco, an entire state just waiting to be freed. As we traveled further north along U.S. 101, past Sonoma and into Humboldt County, the two adult women were cooing at the scenery, which was pretty spectacular: Endless forest. Green mountains. Rivers and streams with their endless curves.

They saw a bank of clouds settled against a range of hills.

“Look!” they told the kid. “How beautiful!”

“They’re just clouds,”[i] she said and slid deeper into her seat,

I asked the kid if she read the news, and she said she did.

OK, then, who’s the vice president.

Wait, wait, I’ve heard his name a million times before. Don’t tell me.

We didn’t.

Two hours into the drive, the kid sighed for the millionth time,

“Can we go home now?” she asked.

We couldn’t.

“Can we at least fly home?”

Not on your life.

We passed a town with a drive-through Redwood tree.

“They need an In-and-Out here,” she said.

Like they have in Orange County.

And another town.

“Why are there houses here? I mean, who would live here?”

We reached one of the highlights of the trip, a 20-mile drive called the Avenue of the Giants. The kid wasn’t impressed.

“They’re just trees,” she said.

And then, “I have to fart.”

Finally, she looked up at the passing redwoods, some of the most majestic living things on the planet.

“I want to be that tall someday,” she said to herself.

She wanted to get to the hotel, so she could get back on the Internet. After all, she might have missed an important message from another 12-year-old.

“I’m bored,” the kid said.

“Then get un-bored,” my wife said.

I glanced into the rearview mirror. The kid was staring into her pocket mirror, reapplying her eyeliner. The scenery passed.

For more than an hour, we played games that 12-year-olds in cars like to play.

Truth or Dare.

And two others that I’ve thankfully forgotten.

When the adults in the car finally got bored, the kid was not happy.

“You’re all so old,” she said. “At least I’m not going to die in the next 50 years.”

We were getting near Eureka.

“Do they have places to get your nails done there?”

I told her we were ‘t stopping, not for that anyway.

She sat back and sulked.

“Are we really going to spend Christmas up here,” she asked. “How depressing.”

A few moments later, I heard a little gasp from the back seat. We’d passed another pretty picture-postcard view.

The kid had her iPhone X out and was taking pictures.

Was she finally getting it?

Then she went quiet for the longest time. Not a complaint was heard.

I’ve won, I thought. She gets the beauty of this place, just like I do.

Then I looked into the rearview mirror.

Her nose was buried in her smart phone.

Apparently, our Internet connection was back