Vacation 401

With checkout time being only 2 hours away, one could liken the bustling activity to an ant colony preparing for winter; and with 23 family members going in, out, and about the cabin, that's not an exaggeration! Dads were lugging dufflebags, pillows, and souveniers to the cars, moms were cleaning the living spaces, counting shoes, and double-checking each area to ensure nothing was left behind, while the 14 cousins were trying to squeeze in every game they never got around to playing.

So, as we wrap up our vacation, let's go over the rules for Vacation 401.

Rule #10 - Be sure to do at least one activity for yourself. Vacation is fun for the family. And most of the time is spent making sure that the kids have a blast. But don't forget to do something that's fun for you. First off, it teaches your kids to share, think of others, and compromise, but the real reason is because the last thing you're going to want to tell your friends at work is that your kids had a good time. Be sure that there was something specific that was fun for you.

For me, that was going to Cooter's Place. I was hoping to actually meet Ben Jones, the actor who played crazy Cooter, the mechanic from Hazzard County, on the TV show Dukes of Hazzard. But, just being able to get my picture next to the General Lee was a dream come true. There was a sign that said I could pay $5 to sit in the car to have my picture taken, and I would have, had I not bored my kids to spend almost an hour just looking at "stuff." But to tell you the truth, I would have paid $100 to have been able to try my Luke Duke impersonation while sliding across the hood of the car and climbing in thru the passenger-side window.




Rule #11 - Motion sickness trumps ALL activites! Although this is mentioned next to last, it is THE most important rule of all. Nothing can ruin a vacation quicker than vomit in the back seat. Travel time from Gatlinburg, TN to St. Louis MO, 8 hours. Time it took the Ferris family, 13 hours spread over 2 days! Value of not having your car smell like vomit for the rest of the trip, priceless.

When we realized our oldest didn't feel good, we decided to stop for some fresh air and check out the deals at one of the many outlet malls... or in Tennessee, a tin warehouse, fashioned with doors on each end, a hallway down the middle, and about 5-6 stores on each side. The fresh air did some good, so we grabbed a quick bite at a Wendy's/gas station/truck stop. The Wendy's was one of the nicer restaurants we've visited, but if it wasn't for our famished state, I'm not sure we could have endured another loud speaker announcement about Shower #2 being available to the next customer.

After only 2.5 hours of driving on the road, we discover that our oldest still isn't feeling well. It wasn't mentioned, but we both realized that before we had a child who didn't feel well; now we had a child who not only didn't feel well, but also had half-digested food in his stomach. While trying to come up with a game plan, I heard our sick one in the back seat say, "Dad, I smell something..." This of course, is what any parent would recognize as the point of no return. At this point, what's in, is about to be out; and there's no stopping it. And as my uncle can attest, there's also no returning to that new car smell once that happens.

I had about a nano-second to respond. Immediately, yelled, "HOLD ON, COOPER!" as I hit the 2 buttons for the windows with my left hand and jerked the wheel hard to the right. If there was a car in my blind spot, it was now in the ditch because I was going determined to catch that exit ramp, no matter what! I don't know if it was the sudden change in cabin pressure, the slower speed, or the need to focus on something else, that kept us from reaching the point of no return, but I'm not one to look a gift horse in the mouth.

Luckily this exit had a real mall this time, but unfortunately, it wasn't a whole lot better. After an hour and a half of shopping and 2 leather belts for the boys, we decided to spend another hour or more on a non-fast food dinner. Afterwards, we took all the necessary precautions before loading back into the van such as moving Cooper out of the back seat and secretly placing a garbage can within reach. The clock now said 7pm, and I realized that we had now spent more time out of the van than we had spent driving. We still had about 7 hours of drive ahead of us, as well as a stop in Padukah, KY, to pick up the dogs.

We were going to have to spend the night, but I'll choose a red-eye trip to dealing with a sick kid any day!


Rule #12 - Vacation is what you make of it. Because our trip home was less than stellar, we decided to have one last hurrah before we concluded our vacation. But since Monday was spent with Sheri catching up on laundry and cleaning the house, and I was back at work, we settled for a rush hour show of Kung Fu Panda. We met at the movie theatre between home and my work and bought 2 large pops to share.

After the movie, we were famished. But coming off a vacation with a grueling trip home we couldn't stomach another fast food restaurant. So, we took advantage of the free pop refills and drove to the other side of the parking lot to order a pizza.



Hey, it's good, cheap, and was ready in about 6 minutes. But most of all, we did it together. And the way I see it, even though you had to use an entire bottle of Tylenol (See Rule #8), if you can say that you had fun, then it's a successful vacation!