Though she works alongside truck drivers every day, Jade Cave racks up most of her annual Dot Transportation miles not by asphalt, but by air. As assistant transportation safety manager, Jade travels to multiple distribution centers every year to attend and present at driver safety meetings.
But as a mother of three, it’s often difficult to say goodbye even for just a night or two of travel. So in advance of her February trip to Dot Foods Arizona, Jade’s six-year-old daughter, Kendal, came up with an interesting proposition that was too tempting to turn down. She wanted to come too.
“I was going to bring my mom along for this trip and Kendal had a couple days off of school anyway, and she really wanted to go,” Jade said. “Plus she kind of guilt tripped my mom, so it made it really hard to say no.”
Knowing she’d have evenings available and some additional free time between work events and responsibilities, Jade agreed. She pulled out her personal credit card and locked in two more last-minute seats on the plane.
Her twin boys were a bit too young to tag along this time, so this was going to be a girls trip regardless. Kendal, who had never been on an airplane before, was over the moon with excitement and couldn’t wait to get her bags packed for a four-day cross-country adventure with Mom and Grandma.
Between driver safety meetings, Jade and her family reserved some tourist time to see the sights and sounds of both Las Vegas and Arizona.
“We toured Hoover Dam and walked by all the famous lights and icons of the Las Vegas strip,” she said. “My daughter really liked the fountain at the Bellagio.”
And it wouldn’t be a true Arizona getaway without a stop by the Grand Canyon.
“My daughter and my mom are pretty adventurous,” Jade said. “They wanted to climb all the way to the tallest part and look out over the part without a railing. I had to hold onto her pretty tightly. It was intense but the view was incredible.”
While Jade worked in the office, it gave grandma and granddaughter some exclusive one-on-one bonding time as well. After hours, the trio met up with some of the families of Dot Foods Arizona to explore the Bullhead community.
“They were so nice and the kids all had a lot of fun hanging out at dinner and at the bowling alley,” she said.
Jade is thankful to work for a company that granted her the flexibility to blend a business trip with a three-generation adventure. For Jade, the cost of two additional plane tickets was a small price to pay for the memories made.
“It’s pretty amazing to work for a company that will allow you to have that work-life balance and have some family fun along the way. We’ll probably make this an annual tradition. It was really nice to have that quality time with my mom and my daughter,” she said. “At the end of the trip, she said ‘Mom, these were the best days ever!’”