Our latest crazy vacation story — from the Family Vacation Stories file

We…. are The Griswolds. Those movies could have been written about us. I love the Vacation movies. If it hasn’t happened to us, something similar probably has. Our family doesn’t travel well. We seem incapable of having a normal, calm, vacation. One without incident. Without turmoil. One that goes close to plan. Here is this year’s Family Vacation Story.

We drove down to south Florida for our granddaughter Sophie’s second birthday. This is a 600 mile trip for us. We – foolishly – decided to make it in one day this time. Neither of us slept well the night before and we left at 5:00 am. Erin and her daughter Dani had gone half way the day before. 

Hopes were high that this trip would be nice and uneventful, and for a 180 miles it was. Then we stopped to eat breakfast at the Cracker Barrel in Albany. That was pleasant. The restaurant wasn’t busy, food was good, life was bliss. Ahhh… This vacation might be different. But we walked back out to this:

But, no biggie. Ricky kept his cool, changed the tire, and we drove on the donut to the Goodyear store that turned out to be just around the corner. I called Erin and told her we were held up and why. She said that Dani was carsick and throwing up.  They were having to get it on down the road and stop. Go, go, go… and stop. But that wasn’t our problem. We weren’t with them. So we got the valve fixed, happy we didn’t need a new tire, and drove on to our destination. 

Things went well for a couple hundred more miles. I did miss a turn, but it didn’t really take us out of the way much. Then…. things took a definite turn for the worse. We were tired and starting to get on each other’s nerves. I was driving, Ricky was sleeping. Or so I thought. It seemed to me that he woke up and yelled, “That’s our exit!!!” Although I know he was awake a little longer than it seemed to me.

I knew darn well it was not our exit, but made it on two wheels on the off chance I was wrong. I wasn’t. I figured he’d realize the mistake and we could just get back on the interstate, but no. He says, “Just keep going.” So go we went and went into the back roads of central Florida. We shouldn’t have needed GPS for this trip at all, but when we stopped at Wendy’s without getting food(!), we switched drivers and I plugged ‘er up to get us out of there. 

We generally take I95 instead of the Turnpike, mainly because there are more bathroom break and food choices. GPS took us to the Turnpike. And that was fine with me. Not so with Ricky. He griped and grumbled about it, it seemed to be all my fault, blah, blah, blah, but at least we knew where we were. 

Finally, our destination is within sight. We’re sooo close. So close! When we got off the Turnpike, 10 minutes from our son’s house, there was some indecision about whether to go straight or turn right. The decision was made to turn right. But first, we had to get in the right turn lane.

Oops. Yeah. An SUV was coming around the bend off the Turnpike and in our blind spot. That seemed to put Ricky over the edge of sanity. And no, I won’t go into details of that. I prefer to forget. But after a good, large, stiff drink to calm his nerves later that night and another day to ease the pain, he was fine. Albeit skittish about driving. I drove the rest of the trip. 

Dani got over being carsick and the rest of the vacay was A-Okay. Sophie had her party and got lots of toys and stickers. Did you know 2 year olds are crazy about stickers?

And the girls went swimming. Daredevil Dani had to show out.

We also went to some yard sales: 

A ceramic Christmas tree – I always buy those – a little Pyrex bowl and a Bisquick recipe holder. Any idea how to get the glued in, broken star stem out of the hole?

 

I was excited to find the bucket and box at the same sale. The man kept trying to tell me what was in the box and I kept saying it didn’t matter. I just liked the box. Then he said how his dad had made the box. I thought that was sweet.

And look at the thickness of that bucket!

I don’t know that I’ve ever seen one that thick. He said is must be 20 years old. Hmmmm…. I kinda thought older than that, but what do I know?

And there was this globe on a stand. (Gah! Our yard looks awful!)

I also got a plant stand that is still on Erin’s truck and three conch shells. Why didn’t I get a picture of the loaded down truck?! They had two wooden ladders, two bar stools, a small end table, the fender of our car, and I can’t remember what else.

So, it all came out in the wash. Everything’s fine. We survived another vacation. We’ve turned the car problem over to our insurance agent and the body shop and we’re back at work. Well almost back. We’ve taken today to ease back into work. We’re both still sluggish. 

One thing I regret is not getting a free trial of Amazon’s Audible (That’s an affiliate link). You get two free books to listen to in the trial membership. We don’t have satellite radio any more and listening to books would have been so much better than scanning for radio stations. We did that with Outlander by Diana Gabaldon (aff) once and it was the quickest trip we ever made. Maybe next time…