I said it over and over. We were driving to Stockholm for a weekend getaway. The scenery was so mesmerizing that I could barely keep our VW on the road.

Tall, green hills and shimmering lakes. Tiny villages framed by flowers. Roadside farm stands heaped with berries. I pointed in every direction, gesturing wildly for the kids’ attention.

In response, they lifted one eyebrow each. “Got it, Mom,” they said. “Beauty.”

I kept up the gesturing until the third or fourth lake, but by then, I had figured it out. That long-ago trip to the Grand Canyon with my parents? It had finally come back to bite me in the butt.

In 1984, I was 13, and my parents were ecstatic. We’d never driven west before.

“Did you see that?” they kept asking. “Those rocks are red!” (Pause for effect.) “The rocks back home are not red!”

I just sat sullenly in the third row of our van, teasing my voluminous bangs. If only I had my curling iron, I thought mournfully. And if only I had hairspray. If only I had a big mirror and my hot rollers.

Hair was very important to me in 1984.

Now, on a picturesque highway in northern Sweden, I was getting my cosmic payback. My kids weren’t mesmerized! Not in the slightest! At ages 12 and 7, they were blasé about European travel. What did I have to do to impress them—take them to another planet?

“Beauty,” they said automatically. Their noses were pressed into books.

By the time we made it to Stockholm, we were tired and hungry. We tumbled into our hotel room, and the kids descended on the mini bar.

“Please, please, please?” they begged joyfully, holding up glass bottles of chocolate milk. Oh sure. Now they were enthusiastic. I broke one of my cardinal rules and said yes.

Later, we found a nearby restaurant that seemed kid friendly from the outside. On the inside, we learned that reindeer can be a menu item, and a giggle-infused dialogue spiraled out of control.

Santa was mentioned, as well as Rudolph, and there were multiple references to a “very shiny dinner.”

"You would even say it glows!" my daughter howled, and my son fell off his chair in hysterics.

Over the next few days, we stormed Stockholm on foot. I took 87 pictures, and the kids posed obligingly for each one.

There was the Vasa—a 17th-century ship that had sunk on its maiden voyage. Down in the dark, near the base of the hull, the sailors’ skeletons were laid out in glass cases.

There was a modern art museum, where the woman at the front desk whispered an ominous warning: “The basement is not good for children.” So we stayed on the first floor, feeling befuddled, and we hovered near a painting of the word “oof.”

There was a Nordic museum, which got an automatic thumbs-down. (Most of the displays seemed to revolve around the history of hats.)

There was a sprawling zoo, where we saw a real, live reindeer, and my son breathed a sigh of relief. (“At least Blitzen is safe.”)

There was a zoo exhibit where visitors could walk through enormous lemur cages. The lemurs seemed nonplussed, but I was a nervous wreck. “Keep your head down and protect your face,” I told the kids as I hustled them along.

And, at every turn, there were gorgeous vistas, with me reminding the children to check out the beauty. Eventually, maybe because they were tired from the walking, they sat on a log together and looked.

On the drive home, I asked the question that parents always ask: What was your favorite part of the trip?

“Three days of adventure,” I reminded them. “Surely you can come up with something.”

But they didn’t have to think long, and they were in total agreement. Their favorite part was when I let them get chocolate milk from the mini bar.

Fine by me. In that moment, I only felt glad. Glad we were together, even if their idea of "fun" was different from mine. Glad no one had gotten his/her face ripped off by a lemur. Glad I was the parent now, and the one with the view from the driver's seat.

Glad that I was steering my kids through all that beauty, toward home.

Heather Heath Chapman is visiting Umea, Sweden, with her husband and two children. You may reach her at heatherchapman1@me.com.