My Family Vacations

The first week of April from Kindergarten through senior year of high school was always Springbreak. Springbreak is a legend among kids. It’s the only time of year when everyone you know goes on vacation, to somewhere warm and fun, at the same time. Teachers would go easy on the homework, parents would go easy on the rules, and the countdowns until Springbreak would start soon after Christmas.

My parents, however, did not believe in merely fun Springbreaks. Oh no, if it wasn’t educational, then by golly, we were not doing it. Let me recount to you, my loyal readers, two of our earlier trips:

1. Virginia. This was my dad’s dream trip: seven days of dead President’s houses, museums, and to top it all off: Colonial Williamsburg. Is it warm in Virginia in April? No, sir, it is not. So while all my friends came back with tans and postcards of their tropical extravaganzas, I brought them back a postcard from where Sally Hemmings and Thomas Jefferson got it on. Racy? perhaps. Better than Panama City? No.

2. Washington, D.C. I actually love Washington, D.C. now. But when I was five or six (in my old age, my memory is beginning to suffer), it was one of the worst trips ever. Not because I knew nothing about U.S. history so big statuses of Lincoln or towers like the National Monument (which, by the way, I still hold is overrated. It’s just a big tower. My brothers built more complex ones with legos) meant little. But even worse, we walked like five miles a day. Nowadays, that’s not a huge deal. But in little kid steps, that’s like a marathon. And I was a chubby little kid. So, at the pathetic age of five, I lost my chafing virginity. Just another thing to tell my therapist, I suppose.

When we got a little older, my parents got pretty tired of all our complaining. I think they could tune us out when we were wee ones, with quiet voices that are neither threatening nor insistent. But when we hit teenagehood, the three Flood kids rallied together for a change. And my parents, always the lawyers with their sneaky, conniving little ways, had us fooled.

They suggested we go to Hawaii. “Hallelujah!” said we. A real Springbreak! We’re finally sun chasers like all the other kids! We packed our swimsuits, our towels, and got ready for a week on the beach. The parents, however, must have laughed to themselves all the way over to Maui. Where we spent the week not lounging, but instead, hiking the trails of Hawaii. Gorgeous? of course. Did that mean we wanted to do that? Of course not. As the only daughter in the family, I did get the easy way out. There were several occasions where frail, poor me just couldn’t handle another hike so my Mom and I would head into town to go shopping while my brothers and my Dad were forced on hikes that were so extreme (picture no trail, just a jungle of vines) that they’re still in recovery today.

I don’t mean to mislead you. We had some amazing Springbreaks and I was truly extremely lucky growing up to be taken all over the world. It just seems to be the Flood Curse that no matter how great a vacation we plan, something always ends up awry.

When we went to the Grand Canyon once, there was the first blizzard in twenty odd years, a blizzard so intense that they shut down the Highway. Of course, Michigan natives like ourselves, didn’t really find the blizzard that bad and drove through it. However, the blizzard did mean we couldn’t actually see the Grand Canyon. But hey, that’s in the details.

My parents took us to Italy once when I was in high school. We had to switch planes in D.C., and at the last minute, the flight attendants decided there wasn’t enough overhead room for our family’s carry-ons (nevermind the 100 passengers and their giant bags already onboard). Out of all those people, my poor parents had to have their bags checked. They were promptly lost. Cliff’s was recovered a few days later, tattered and slashed, like a mugger went to town on it. Ann’s bag was never found. Foreign country with a crappy exchange rate and no luggage? Of course that would happen to us.

There’s also the issue we have with getting sick while on vacation. Whether it’s food poisoning or water poisoning or just the a random attack of dehydration, my little brother in particular manages to catch it all. In LA, he had an ear infection that was so intense my mom had to check him in to the Emergency Room. In Mexico, he drank the water and ended up so sick that he asked for us to either illegally buy him morphine or simply knock him unconscious. I was willing to do the later, but my parents were not willing to let me.

In the end, I suppose our education vacations have been remarkably more interesting than my friends and their 12 trips to Panama City. While I didn’t appreciate them growing up, there is something kind of cool about saying that you’ve seen The Tree That Owns Itself or been to more National Parks than you have beaches. At the very least, it’s a quirky little fact about us.

When I was little and complaining, my parents used to tell me that when I grew up and had a family, I could do it my way and hit the beach every April. Now that I’ve had some time to reflect, I think that I would like to torture my children the way I was tortured. After all, they’ve got to lose that chafing virginity sometime…