It’s hard to say what solidified our recent decision to leave New York. Maybe it was that lovely heat wave sprinkled with flying cockroaches. Maybe it was the fact that the subway line I lived on was planning a 2018 shutdown, leaving me to do battle with 50,000 hipsters for the handful of Ubers that will end up stuck on a bridge anyway. Or, maybe it was just that Hailey got sick of walking through a neighborhood that was slowly returning to its ’70s glory as a Mecca of cat-calls and face-slashings.

A rich tapestry, to be sure — but the message was clear. We were headed south, to the place many of our friends and family called home. And what better way to make an entrance than with a road trip to see our fathers! That sure seems like something good children would do. We’d settle into Jacksonville, Florida, and soon haul our sweet little faces up to Georgia for a double-dip of dads.

Alas, the drive from Jacksonville to Saint Simons Island tallies a mere hour and change, no matter how many retirees’ Cadillacs you get stuck behind.

As road trips go, it looked more like a Sunday schlep to IKEA than a four-wheeled, wind-blown, great American adventure.

Then Hailey suggested we go “the other way.”

“What’s the ‘other’ way?”, I asked.

Yep, that way. Don’t bother leaving the porch light on, pops… we’re gonna be a while.