“Do you even want to go?” I was cut off.
A month before he left for college ten hours northeast, I needed to see signs of life, some excitement, and anything other than the apathy or disengagement that only deepens during a planning-heavy summer.
“This is my graduation present, right?” He was calm, thoughtful and smiling. “As part of this gift, I don’t want to plan anything.”
They say set the tone. I know now that the journey was as much for me as it was for him. To verify. To see if we’re okay. To reconnect.
A week in a minivan provided him with all the reconnection he had ever asked for.
Launching from San Francisco, we put the third row on the floor, moved the second-row captain’s chairs as far back as possible, and installed the cooler behind the center console so either of us could reach it from the front seats.
In the deep storage bucket under the center armrest, we kept sunscreen, bug spray, extra phone accessories, trail mix, and Sour Patch Kids. The console doesn’t optimize space and storage like other minivans, with their tiered shelves and side pockets. However, it was enough to keep the essentials handy for our frequent stops. The first was Pinnacles National Park, where the interior temperature jumped 20 degrees and the heat was only relieved by caving through the park’s seemingly prehistoric bowels.
Kia Carnival 2024 cruise
Back on the road, we upped the SX Prestige’s standard cooled front seats and headed south toward San Simeon to log the most highway miles in one day. The 280-hp 3.5-liter V-6 has plenty of power for single-lane highway passing, but the paddle shifters would be great for overriding the 8-speed automatic on demand for uphill passing, where the big lugs lag. It was quiet and smooth enough.
He was asleep within minutes, no different than when he was a baby. He didn’t adjust the 4-way lumbar, and he didn’t even recline the passenger seat. Out of respect, he plugged in the earphone and left the one near me open.
This has become our default setting, he falls asleep or in his phone with one bud in and one out. He was there with me about 25% of the time, which I appreciated because he was older than I was at home.
Instead, I played with the truck, using the cabin camera on the 12.3-inch touchscreen to see how the contents were tossed in the back on some access roads. The only thing I couldn’t get over that Kia has since addressed is the console clutter. I could charge my phone with the wireless charger, but its phone and its 9-foot cord looped over the controller and ran down the side, reminding me of all the shoes strewn by the back entrance at home, a parenting rage I never got rid of. I think it’s the joke he and his sister would use later: Line up the damn shoes, close the damn door, did you drink enough water today?
The 2025 Carnival now has wireless connectivity with smartphones, so there should be less visual clutter. We virtually turned to his phone and his playlists, and I was thrilled to learn that he had recently discovered Radiohead. He turned me on to the Rainbow Kitten Surprise, I reintroduced it to Wilco and ordered more from the Grateful Dead.
After setting up camp on the slope at Washburn Campground in Hearst San Simeon State Park, we grabbed a frisbee and some drinks and hung out on the beach enjoying our first Pacific sunset. And this was the one thing he made clear when he started planning months ago: “I think I want to see the sunset over the Pacific Ocean.”
The trip wasn’t just a graduation gift, it was a pandemic promise he made to him and his sister to graduate with honors. Anywhere within the contiguous United States, your choice. He graduated with first class honors. I justify this modest boast because of how serious the pandemic years have been. For all of us. For his congregation, canceling eighth-grade graduation and all the rites of passage associated with it — the school trip to Washington, D.C., the post-dance boat ride on Lake Michigan, the parties, the distance learning of the first year, the second year in masks and desks barricaded with plexiglass — led to significant but unknown consequences.
We had no idea if the kids would be okay. Still don’t do it, I think. Parenting never really knows.
Kia Carnival 2024 cruise
At three in the morning, the stars were a spectacle.
The next day was ambitious – to elephant seals and up to Hearst Castle before hitting the road again – and fraught with danger. The laughter and deep conversations from the night before broke down on the beach of breaking down an ill-equipped camp and moving on. Charting a course to communicate with an 18-year-old son is an unmarked area on a map, except for the known danger zone of the Hangry Straights.
Kia Carnival 2024 cruise
We were hit by the time we got to Morro Strand State Beach. We stopped under a scrawny beach tree and agreed to relax before setting up camp. He was asleep in the passenger seat before I finished draining the radiator. I stepped up behind him and lowered my energy.
The SX Prestige features a seven-seat layout with two captain’s chairs in the middle row. Unlike lesser models that don’t have power reclining, heating and cooling, this setup prevents you from removing the chairs completely. I moved the seat to its farthest rearward position, which is usually facing the third row. It was reversed, the leg rest was raised, and as the sun was passing over the ocean, the sunroof opened. The Carnival has two sunroofs, one forward, and one above the second row. It’s a nice touch, better than the panoramic setup as it divides the cabin into two zones with skylights.
Kia Carnival 2022
Even in this more extended position, I couldn’t extend my legs, but tucking them to the departing side was fine. I suppose I could have shifted to the other side and moved the driver’s seat forward, but the beach breeze blowing through the open side door would have been pretty much perfect. There was snoring and drooling. This wouldn’t be the last time we took a nap at the carnival.
Kia Carnival 2024 cruise
Kia Carnival 2024 cruise
Kia Carnival 2024 cruise
He discovered a small Lego store and wanted to move back to San Luis Obispo. Thanks to a suite of driver-assistance technologies that included parking sensors, backup lines, and a blind-spot camera that alerted me to an approaching cyclist that I couldn’t see, parking the second-largest minivan on the market was a breeze. At a coffee shop, sipping a milkshake and looking at the comic book store across the street, I remembered that this man, my son, was still a boy.
As much as I tried and failed to act like a peer, letting him do what he wanted, and weighing in on all decisions, he still submitted to me as a parent. I have been, and always will be. Duh. When I called him out for walking behind me in town on his phone instead of being by my side like usual, his response was to walk far ahead of me on our hike to a waterfall in the woods of the county park.
By the time we got to our first hotel, a Pismo Beach dump with no air conditioning and windows that didn’t open, we were halfway there. He needed a break. His room had a door that he barely left.
I walked down the boardwalk and the sidewalk during sunset, recounting what I said and what I shouldn’t have said, how I should and shouldn’t act. Dolphins mingled with surfers. The beer sat in the fridge. In the dark, I walked around the truck, repacking the camping stuff we no longer needed. Parenting in miniature: Moving on before I fully realized what was happening.
I stuffed my dad’s military backpack from Vietnam with tent, sleeping bags, memorabilia, and other items we collected but wouldn’t need anymore. This was my first time using it and it fit our gear perfectly without being a burden when flying, unlike my old frame backpack that was meant for backcountry carry. Before we left, I asked my son if he could figure out how to close it, with the four rings and one clasp. You need YouTube. It took 30 seconds.
I was impressed by the sturdiness and simplicity of it. It has become the luggage equivalent of a carnival: nothing flashy but very practical. Like my father.
In January, he told me he had finished studying options for treating lung cancer. My brother turned around and worried he might die that night. I was in Toronto with my daughter. The first flight was the next day. I called my son and asked him the impossible: Can you go to the emergency room to be with Grandpa Duff at my place? He did so without hesitation or protest.
This boy, my son, was a man.
He met me later, the nocturnal creature I had become. We found a place with a dartboard, he picked out a radical drink, we talked trash, and he beat me at cricket, the second time he beat me as many times as he played.
It’s been an eventful year, much more for him than for me. In three weeks he will leave behind everything he knew to be surrounded by those he does not know in a place he has never known before. What I knew he was going through was like the surface of the ocean, calm and stormy at the same time. There was a lot going on beneath its surface.
Robert Dover and Son, Kia Carnival Road Trip
We left the carnival behind to take the ferry to hike Santa Cruz Island in Channel Islands National Park. At a major junction, he challenged me to climb to the top, extending our five-mile loop to 10 miles, doubling our time and not caring much if the ferry left us behind overnight with no food, dwindling water, and no shelter. I was intrigued enough to abandon the wisdom of age and enjoy the adventure of youth. We didn’t, but his spirit was magnetic. On the return trip, she jolted him awake as the captain slowed down a pod of nurse dolphins, one week older than she had ever seen them before, dancing in the water like a party.
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Kia Carnival SX Prestige 2024
Base price: $47,665, including $1,365 for destination
Price as tested: $49,480
Payment system: 280-hp, 3.5-liter V6 engine, 8-speed automatic transmission, front-wheel drive
EPA fuel economy: 19/26/22 mpg
Pros: Mobile room, quiet, comfortable, spacious, my son is growing up
cons: Apple CarPlay is wired, not cheap, my son is getting older
