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Book Review of The Road to Christmas

The Road to Christmas
THEkrps avatar reviewed on


I am a HUGE fan of Sheila Roberts' books and perhaps more importantly, her sense of humor. I will never regret picking up a couple of her books years ago and reading them. I have since read every one of her books.

This book is about things that go wrong on road trips. Seeing as though I am a product of veteran road trippers I can relate. Early on, my Mom decided that we could camp our way to vacations. Our first camping trip occurred when I was maybe 5 or 6. To see if we liked camping, my parents rented a tent, mom bought a camping book of the time and off we went to Washington DC. One of our first campsites turned out to be not a public campground at all, but rather a boy scout camp. The director was very gracious and let us sleep in his house overnight. The next day, we were off to our campground and a most memorable trip. When I was 9 or 10, my uncle, who was in the AF, was stationed in Wyoming. Our family vacation that year was to travel to Wyoming to see that part of our family. My mother planned many interesting stops along the way. We went through Canada and toured the Ford plant on the US side of the border. In Illinois, we explored the land of Lincoln. In Missouri, we visited Mark Twain's (Samuel Clemens) birthplace and haunts. All this with four pre-teens and teens in a station wagon with a popup camper. What we didn't plan on was not being able to find a campground one night and ending up sleeping in the car at a rest stop. Mom remembered that that particular town had been in the news recently because of some serial killer, so, we rolled up the windows and locked the doors. By morning, the windows were down and our feet were hanging out of the windows because it was too hot to do otherwise. My father put the camper up and mom cooked us breakfast and fed the truckers stopped there as well. Prior to leaving on that trip, I was ill with what was then called tonsilitis. Our family doctor prescribed the usual treatment of penicillin and off we went. Unfortunately, the further along the route we got, I seemed only to be getting more ill, ultimately, I was talking through my nose and was steadily losing weight. When we arrived in WY, my aunt, who was a nurse said I either had a real bad case of strep throat or an abscess. I needed to go to the doctor. The regular GP said he could not handle my issue and sent me to an ENT. The ENT took one look in my throat and said what hospital do you want her in? It was indeed an abscess behind one tonsil, which was removed so that the abscess could be drained. We were supposed to be in Yellowstone for my sister's birthday, but because I was hospitalized, we were delayed a dayâI still remember my sister telling the rangers it was my fault we had not made it in time for her birthday. One of the highlights of this trip for me was that I'd done a report on Sacajawea that year in school and we traveled to her grave. My husband likes to say we're having an adventure, and we have had many such adventures in the decades of our relationship! If you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans, indeed!

Even if you have never had such adventures, you will surely find this book enjoyable!

In the interest of full disclosure, I got this book from the author as part of her street team. But I'd have gotten, read and reviewed it anyway!