We were on Hour 4 of our 13-hour Mama-boys road trip to a championship for Superhero 1 in East Lansing, Michigan.

The route was one we knew well. Before they moved to our state, my parents used to live in Michigan, and between trips to Michigan and trips to visit family still living along this same route in Ohio, we’d made the long trek multiple times over the last few years. We knew the roads, we had exact change for all the tolls and we were ready to put our Pilot on auto-pilot and breeze through these familiar paths with ease.

Until we hit a highway road closure, and a detour ruined our awesome, easy-breezy, we-had-already-transitioned-to-cruise-control-and-audio-book-mode, simple and streamlined road tripping life.