Vacations

Spring break is coming up and shreds of old vacations begin to float ominously through my mind.

Our vacations were epic!

The children woke up on the road and went to sleep as we kept on driving. Carefully scheduled stops were never missed. We were on time and we didn't waste even a quarter, running through thunder storms in distant mountains while their father shouted out the information in the trail guides.

Vehicle maintenance always seemed to take place on the road. We left tools from Yellowstone to Disney World and the most common sighting of our driver (and father) was with his legs sticking out from under the Monstermobile. The children made friends with mechanic's children in various and sundry small towns across America.

Sixteen hour days at Disney World and following the manual to a T guaranteed we got our money's worth there. If a child threw up over breakfast or our shoes were soaked from touring in rainstorms? Well, that was just par for the course.

Roller coasters had nothing on the ride we took in the Monstermobile as it dragged its water logged fuel filter up mountain roads flanked by open range with antelopes leaping blithely past us before we careened down six percent grades on hairpin loops hoping our dual tires held out long enough to get home.

We met snakes in the playgrounds, alligators by the pool, and walking sticks the size of my hand in bed. We discovered a family of five can share a pay by the minute shower room in five minutes and you get the best darkness in out of the way camp grounds whose spaces back up to breath takingly deep gorges. Lighted bathrooms became my reading rooms.

By the end of our trip we had been known to spend hours counting the flies in hot little service stations, or watching oil derricks pump in Dole, Kansas before getting a little R & R in a Holiday Inn where I would leap up screaming in the middle of the night when the air conditioner kicked in because I thought we were going over the side of the mountain.

Then there were the post traumatic stress nightmares that followed once we got home. Those funny letters our friends roared over came at a price. I would dream we were crashing over a cliff in the Rockies, or being attacked by the grizzly bears whose scat we had learned to identify on fun little hikes with park rangers.

Some things are just more fun to write about, talk about, and reminisce over . . . actually doing them is highly over rated.