Vacation, Happy To Get Away

“I’m bored.” Eric moans.

It’s ten after five - in the morning. The family is piled into the minivan cruising down the highway. It’s the official start of our beach vacation. But we'll need to pass through six states before we get there. So for the next nine hours we’ll have nothing to do but stare at each other and the passing landscape.

I shake my head. We’re barely an hour from home and the kids are already antsy. Emily is crying because she wants to watch Dora on the van’s DVD player. But Beth got first pick at the movies and she wanted Wonder Pets. Beth is sticking out her tongue, causing Emily to wail louder. And Eric has already asked “are we there yet” ten times.

Oh, and I almost forgot, Beth threw up about a fifteen miles back and we had to stop and clean up the mess. And now the car smells like puke.

Sigh. Family vacation.

“We didn’t have problems like this when we made the trip last year.” I say.

Ken looks at me ask if I suddenly sprouted a second head. “What trip were you on?”

“We had a lovely drive." I say "We watched movies. The kids took naps. Everyone behaved.”

Ken scowls. “Do you have a second family somewhere that I don’t know about?”

Of course, Ken is right. For some reason, my brain had dismissed images of last year’s trek. I'd forgotten how Eric picked at Emily until she cried. It had gotten so bad that I suddenly turned into my Mom and screamed “If the two of you don’t knock it off, we’ll turn this car around and go home!” And then Ken had pulled over to the side of the road and put it in park just to prove we were serious.

It’s funny but, when it comes to vacations, my long term memory seems to pick out the best and dump the rest.

I remember the time in 79 when Mom and Dad took the family to Disney – by car. Theresa, Tina and I spent two days rolling around in the back of the station wagon. We fought and argued so much that Mom and Dad threatened leave us at South of the Border.

But that’s not what I remember. I remember that Theresa had recorded two songs from the radio on her battery operated tape player. They were “I Want You to Want Me” by Cheap Trick and “The Logical Song” by Supertramp. We played the songs over and over until the recorder's batteries went dead. But by then we had memorized all the words. So we sang them at the top of our voices until Dad asked us to stop.

We had gone to Florida in August. Probably because we could get a price break during the boiling off season. The temperatures were over a hundred degrees and the humidity made the air feel thick as glue.

It was so hot that when you took a breath, you felt like you were sucking the sun right into your stomach. After spending a day in the blazing heat, Tina and I were burned so bad we developed chills and cried ourselves to sleep with pain.

But that’s not what I remember. What I remember is my heart beating fast as we parked in the Disney parking lot. I remember holding my breath as we boarded the monorail that would whisk us to the park. I remember gazing at hedges cut in the shapes of zoo animals. I remember butterflies dancing in my stomach when I caught sight of Cinderella’s Castle, with Its spikey blue peaks and fluttering red flags. And, even though I was in junior high school, I remember believing in magic all over again.

I don't remember Dad searching through his wallet hoping we had enough money to buy breakfast for five at the diner just outside the park. I don't remember sneaking sandwhiches through the front gates in Mom's purse so we could avoid the extravagent burger prices inside. I don't remember the long, hot walk from our hotel to the bus stop that delivered us to Disney. And I don't remember rushing to catch the last bus after the fireworks and, having missed it, walking twice as far back to our room that evening.

But I do remember the five us taking a short cut across a hotel lawn - even though the sign out front clearly said "Keep off the grass." That's when Dad heard the foooshhhing sound as the sprinklers clicked on.

"RUN!" He shouted. But it was too late.

Mom took off running and so did the kids. We sprinted through the spray. I remember the squishy feeling of my wet sneakers squashing through the grass. By the time we reached the sidewalk, droplets of water were dripping down my cheeks. Mom and Dad were laughing breathlessly and Tina, Theresa and I were laughing so hard we couldn't speak. I remember thinking it was the best day ever.

I’m hoping my kids have the same selective memory that I do. Maybe when they are all grown up and taking their kids on vacation, they’ll talk fondly about the wonderful times we had singing and playing the license plate game in the car. Maybe they'll tell their kids how we would eat a picnic lunch at a road side rest stop in West Virginia and then play tag and hide and seek until it was time to get back on the road.

And if I am lucky, none of them will remember the day Emily spilled grape juice all over the back seat and Mom blew her top.