I tried to start a conversation about same-sex marriage with Ben and Eli, but Ben was so surprised to hear that some people don’t believe it should be legal that we got derailed. Eli only wanted to know if he could marry Ben some day. So no great wisdom from the kids on the topic, but here’s what I think in a nutshell: marriage has been around a long time, and it’s a better institution now than it was several hundred years ago (when it was basically a real estate deal) and it’s a better institution now than it was even several generations ago (when it was less a real estate deal but women still had few rights). The more people who can participate in the institution, the stronger it’s going to be. Vote No on Prop 8.

And because cute kids always help the cause, I’m including a picture of Ben at his first wedding, of our friends Brianna and Angie, back in the days when for same-sex couples it was a ceremonial ritual with no legal rights. Some day, I hope he looks back at this picture and smiles at how far our country has come.

Spread the word! On October 29th, Mombian is hosting a blog carnival to help defeat California’s Proposition 8.

Here’s the info from Mombian:

Please join bloggers around the country and around the world on Wednesday, October 29 to blog in support of marriage equality for same-sex couples and against California’s Proposition 8.

The event will give bloggers a chance to voice their opposition to Prop 8 and highlight what they may have already done, online or off, to stop the measure. The campaign will also educate California voters of the need to “go all the way” down the ballot to vote on the proposition.

Mike Rogers of PageOneQ approached me last week to ask if I’d organize a blog carnival like Blogging for LGBT Families Day, but this time to help generate awareness and action against Prop 8. I readily agreed, and here it is.

To participate, post on your own blog against Prop 8 on or before October 29, 2008, then submit the link to your post by completing the form below. Links to your own videos on YouTube or other video sites are also accepted.

Many of you have already done much to try and stop Prop 8 in California, donating and raising money, blogging, and talking with friends and family. Please share your efforts and post about them for Write to Marry Day, or submit a link to a previous post. This will help us create a comprehensive view of bloggers’ efforts to stop Prop 8.

I urge you to spread the word about this event as widely as possible, on both LGBT and mainstream sites. All bloggers who are against Prop 8 are welcome to contribute posts, regardless of where they live or whether they are LGBT or not.

I will showcase the full list of participants here on October 29.

Not only that, but all participants who leave a valid e-mail address will be entered into a drawing for a $50 gift certificate to Amazon.com.

I’ll be posting a little story here later.

This is how the backseat looked after we’d extracted the two sleeping boys from their boosters.

And here are some road trip notes:

$4/gallon gas does help keep holiday drivers off the road, so we managed 300 miles today in 5 hours (including a stop for morale-boosting ice cream).

The ice cream sandwiches in King City, California, are so big even Eli can’t finish one (believe me, he tried).

Speaking of ice cream, drumsticks are “a great example of fossil layers,” says Ben.

We passed truckloads of garlic and broccoli, fields of romaine and artichokes, oil rigs (both off-shore and on land) and wind farms.

Visiting family is terrific (especially when there are young cousins to play with and a new book –no, for a change I don’t mean mine! — to talk about), but it’s always good to be home.

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California is big.

Now I’ve always known this, even before I lived here and started driving around. I’ve driven from north to south and deep into the middle, too. And I’m not afraid of road trips; I’ve driven across country once (spending the better part of a day crossing Pennsylvania, before I knew people I would like to visit) and once, when a friend and I were 100 miles into a trip before realizing we’d forgotten something, we happily turned around to get it and set off again. Good company, good songs on the radio, some snacks along the way — what’s not to like about a road trip?

Road trips with the kids, of course, are another story. Our first big (over 2 hour) drive with Ben was when he was just a bit over two. We flew the red eye from San Francisco to Washington, DC (no sleep), drove from DC to Richmond, Virginia (no sleep) and then, after breakfast, drove from Richmond to the Outer Banks. For the last leg, I was in the back seat, crammed next to Ben, my sister driving and niece in the passenger seat. They might as well have been in another country, doing the snack-music-conversation thing happily while I read George and Martha Tons of Fun over and over again. Tons of fun it may be for George and Martha, but not for me, not for seven hours. (Thank goodness, it was a great vacation, and as I recall, Tony did Ben duty on the drive back).

A road trip doesn’t have to be long to be rough. When Eli was a little bit, we’d drive into the city most days from our temporary house in Marin, to take Ben to preschool and check the progress of our renovation. Often we’d have dinner with friends in the city before driving the twelve miles back to Marin, and I would spend the drive with my arm stretched back, straining out of its socket, trying to give squalling Eli a finger to suck, until I gave up, unbuckled my seat belt and climbed into the back to comfort him (or, more accurately, myself).

Luckily the kids are pretty good travelers these days — luckily because there’s a lot of California to see! Over the last weekend, we drove 9 1/2 hours to Yosemite and back, put about 500 miles on the car, ate one box of Trader Joe’s mini peanut butter crackers, half a dozen Z Bars, a bag of dried mango, a bag of roasted almonds, some carrot sticks and a lot of dry cereal. We listened to Dan Zanes, Chris Molla, The Beatles, Maroon 5, and Diablo’s Dust. We played 20 Questions (more on that later). Although we timed our drives to coincide with Eli’s naps, he napped a total of 2 out of the 9 1/2 hours. And yet, we did it all without any tears or many raised voices.

I think we’ll do this again.