theladyjess

Nina66 and Lauren:

I'm glad that I brought a smile to your face. All of my stories are true. I have one of those families that where anything can happen.

On one of our trips to the beach my older sister, Merry (who is developmentally disabled) had to go to the bathroom. It was late at night and Mom didn't want to walk her all the way down to it. Mom had Merry go in the bushes between the trailer and the van. Well on the way back to bed, Merry stepped in dog poop in her bare feet. It gets worse...Merry jumps into bed, the bed she was sharing with Mom. Dog poop all over the sleeping bag! (I'm laughing as I type, this is still funny even several years later). Mom comes in after Merry and discovers that the sleeping bag is yucky, and boy was she mad! This of course wakes up me, McKenzie and Katie. Mom tries her best to clean it and Merry with baby wipes, while McKenzie and I try not to laugh too much (Katie was too young to realize what was going on). She got Merry and most of the sleeping bag clean, but the smell was horrible. She ended up putting the sleeping bag outside and using an extra blanket that we had with us.

Nina66

I went to two different summer camps, two weeks each time, when I was 11 and 12. The first camp was a YMCA camp, yuck.... huge window openings, no glass, and a long dormitory like cabin shared with probably 15 other little girls. Cold, damp and I caught a bad cold. My mother warned me not to sleep outside or near an open window... but obviously the Y was not as concerned with my health as my mother was. I have hated camping out ever since.

The next year I went to a wonderful camp that was a very nice private school during the rest of the year. We slept in small houses with several bedrooms, with glass in the windows, and real bathrooms. From day one, I knew that that was where I belonged!!

There were boys and girls, probably 10 - 13 years of age, and of course I fell in love for the first time. Actually I fell in love twice, once with a boy and once a horse. I was crazy about Norman, the boy, but so were most of the other 12 year old girls. He graciously divided his time -almost equally- between all of us. Even though we both lived in San Francisco, our 'relationship' ended when our session was over, and although I never forgot him, we lost contact. He was probably too busy tending to his chapped lips ;-)

Four years later, in high school, I met a girl with the same last name as Norman's. She was his first cousin. I did everything that I could to find out about him, without telling her that he was my long lost love. I finally did meet him at one of her parties .... those four years had not been kind to him. He looked like Icabod Crane and had a personality to match. He didn't remember me and I never said a word to him about 'our past'. This time I was afraid that with my luck, he would like me.

Austin

Reading all these stories is just wonderful. How could I have forgotten all our trips to the World's Fair in NYC? Took a few car trips from NY to FL too. My brother and I actually enjoyed them! I remember visiting my rich uncle in Miami, who was staying at the Eden Roc hotel. Man, was that fancy back then (late 60's). I remember my cousins invited me (age 10) to go see the Beach Boys. The opening act was this little known band called the Grateful Dead. I was so young, and more into the crowds, and the huge convention center than the music.

Austin

Your stories are SO enjoyable (and Lady Jess, yours are a hoot!). I'm topping to prevent the premature death of a very nostalgic thread! More stories anyone???

theladyjess

This one is not just from vacations but any time the oppertunity arises.

Both my parents are avid amature photographers. Dad was a photographer in the army. Mom LOVES to take "Potty Pictures". If we get caught in a situation where we need to, um, use a bush, watch out! Mom is usually lurking around waiting until our pants are around our ankles to take a picture. It doesn't matter if we are 3, 13, 23,etc. She loves to catch us with our pants down. It's not only family, but freinds as well. She once caught a friend of hers from church coming out of a men's restroom at a road stop. Dad has tried his best, but Mom never seems to be the one who is caught with her pants down. These photos aren't kept in a secret box. Mom proudly displays them in the photo albums.

With all the stories from my life (so far), I could write a book.

LaurenSKahn

LadyJess, I gotta be careful not to vacation with your Mom.

Fortunately, no one in my family is obsessed with potty photos, but when he was small my son would give the toilets ratings wherever he went (and he never missed a toilet).

I have to say this: It is so nice to be able to vacation without the kids again now that they are grown. I love them, but some of those vacations were more like expeditions than vacations. When they were small, we would load up the station wagon with a case of Pampers, portacrib, baby wipes, toys, etc., and I would think "Why don't we just stay home?" Ha!

Now I get to pick my vacations--which are occasionally to visit my kids.

McSmith

rjw_lgb_ca: I'm not sure if you were just being sarcastic or if you didn't really read my posting. What I am suggesting is that all of the memories posted so far DO NOT involve themeparks and other organized activities. So, then why are so many people today so quick to over plan and over structure a family vacation. What has happened to our vacations?

PS I too love reading all the stories. Send more.

rjw_lgb_ca

McSmith: I was using the "Royal You"-- not referring specifically to YOU. I am in complete agreement vis-y-vis parents jumping to overplan and regimentalize their children's vacations, usually resorting to theme parks to give them Lots of Entertainment in One Place So the Parents Can Relax and Not Have to Entertain Them.

If one looks for a reason, I would start with our hurried, stressed society, where parents know they have to provide "Quality Time" for their kids, and where the quality of a vacation is measured by "Money Spent" and not "Time Spent Doing Things with the Children". My memories of my father don't have to do with any specific time he spent money on us; they have to do with weekends spent teaching me to drive (one day at the store: "Here are the keys, drive home"), planting the front lawn with a quarter-acre of sod, a shovel and a machete (and lots of cold beer supplied by Mom), vacations where we'd go into French Quarter bars and stay out till 3 and 4 AM, etc.

ChristieP

When I was growing up, my family had a travel trailer and we went camping in it a LOT. We explored many state parks in Texas, and we had our favorites that we returned to as often as we could. We usually went with another family that lived nearby and had kids the same ages, so that made it even better. We kids would go swimming or hiking, and we'd return in the evening to campfire dinner. The Dads would bring the family bicycles, and we'd all get up early and go for rides to watch the wildlife. It was fun!

Austin

Last year DH, 12 yr. old daughter and I went to WA state for a wedding. Daughter was not real excited about it, but it ended up being a wonderful vacation - hiking around and part way up Mt. Baker (she was thrilled to find snow in June), driving to Vancouver and sightseeing, ferry to San Juan Island and whale watching. The memories and experiences were priceless.

queenbee

I would have to say that my best childhood adventures would be camping with my family right here in good old Minnesota. We always used to camp at state parks and it was great fun, having a fire, hiking and giggling at night. One time a bear ran through our campsite, my older (supposedly brave)brother woke up 10 year-old me to say there was a bear coming, it was chasing something. I can still remember hearing it's growly noisy breath, terrifying and exciting all at once. I don't think the animal it was chasing made out to well in the end.
I am now 29 with kids and my siblings have families, we still all vacation together for a week in the summer, we have graduated up to a cabin in a resort, but we all stay in the same 4 bedroom cabin. There is 11 of us now and one more on the way. Most of us travel to more exciting destinations than "up north" but that once a summer trip is very valuable and special. It is true we don't need waterparks and gimmicks to have fun. Sometimes simple is best!

DixieChick

Two week camping trip every summer. All 8 of us piled into the '67 Chevy Impala. Add an 8-man tent, stove, lantern, 8 sleeping bags, pots & pans, utensils, food, clothes, etc. and you can see how fun it was in the car!!!

Every trip, there were low moments that involved stinging insects, dirt, rain, injuries and tickets from park rangers, but these are the things that good memories are made of.

Postal

I grew up in New York City, and we never left New York for a vacation, so my best memories are from the summers I spent on Long Island Sound, in Rocky Point, NY, and all the trips into Manhattan (simply called "the city" by people in other parts of NYC) I made with my parents. I especially loved the visits to Chinatown - and now my grown kids love them too!

theladyjess

DixieChick:
Your storie reminds me of a Disney moveie called "Ollie Hopnoodle's Haven of Bilss". It was a made for tv movie that they showed every summer in the late 80s and early 90s. I wish it was on video. It was all about the adventure of getting to the lake cabin, and reminded my family of the some times endless 2 hour ride to the beach.

Cassandra

I grew up outside Boston and all our vacations were taken near Lake Winnepesaukee in New Hampshire. My big family plus dog had to be split between two cars, and planning the seating arrangements rivaled trying to assign places at a diplomatic dinner. There were certain pairs of kids who were guaranteed to fight, and certain kids guaranteed to get sick once off the highway (which was half the trip before the Interstate system -- what is now a 2-3 hr. drive was 6 at least): "Dibs on front seat" "No, I'll throw up in the backseat." "She always says that."

We forgot one kid at a gas station once -- took about an hour to figure out he was in neither car. Fortunately, he was the least flappable of all my sibs and was waiting with complete faith at the gas station, eating a hamburger.

When I was 7, I had my first visit away from home with my grandparents in Rochester NY. They took me on a Budliner -- a "shuttle" sort of electric train -- between Buffalo and ?Plattsburg? first to Niagara Falls and then across the state to Lake George. I loved: the idea you didn't have to get in a car to travel; the consomme in the dining car; the colored lights on the falls; the dancing at the Indian Reservation near Lake George. I hated: the puddle-jumper Mohawk plane that stopped at least 4 times on the way back to Boston -- following a weather front the whole way. I got so sick that I was phobic about flying for years. Took 2 shrinks and a pile of Xanax to get me back on a plane, but I fly all the time now, I'm happy to say.

(Of course, each time I have to deal with a lot of turbulence, it takes more Xanax to get on the NEXT plane. I feel awful for all the people across the country who had to deal with this week's wild weather, but all I could think was, "Thank god I don't have to fly this week.")

ARKANSASNURSE

The summer between 8th and 9th grade my mother realized her New York born and bred children were very displaced in southern Arkansas, to which we had moved the previous summer, so we went to stay on a farm, that belonged to one of her childhood friends. That was the year I found out that the milk and eggs my mother brought at the grocery store came from cows and chickens. And that a TOM cat could not have kittens. By the end of the summer I could milk a cow and harvest eggs like a pro. I still cannot eat a freshly 'done' chicken tho.

luna

My sisters and I were raised by our mother, a single parent in the days when such a thing was unknown in our city. We were, even with her working two full-time jobs, very poor, but we still managed to get away for a week every summer to a nearby lake and rent one of the cheap, splintery, no-plumbing-at-all cabins at Mameo Beach. Each cabin had a name ("Swimmer's Inn" "Y-Bar-Me") and each had its own, named outhouse. Water came from a common pump near the town hall and playground. The lake was relatively weed-free, okay for swimming and water-skiing, and we would often find dead fish washed up on the shore early in the morning.
Highlights of our summers: the year both my kid sister and I became ill with a stomach bug - vomiting and diarrhea, and the laundromat was in another town; our older sister spent her July birthday watching over us while our mother drove off to wash a load of sheets. Picking saskatoon berries from the bushes that grew all around, and our mother's mother baking us a saskatoon pie in the wood stove. Riding a rental nag from the horse stables down the highway for an hour - I saved all year to pay for that precious hour! The time I was on an air mattress on the lake, drifting and daydreaming - never realized I was way far away from shore, halfway across the lake! Another family staying there had a powerboat, and they fetched me -and the air mattress- back. Using the lidded enamel chamber pot in the night because there was a wild party going on at the town hall so we weren't allowed outside. And the year I went to use the outhouse, and ran back to the car asking if we could take the kitty I had been playing with back to the city with us; my mother came to see the kitty - took one look and ran me back to the car - it was a skunk! Hadn't sprayed me - I guess it knew I was harmless.

GoTravel

I've had some great family vacations and my entire family still vacations together. My father-in-law and father are taking both sides of the family to NYC this summer.

As a child, my grandparents summer home in Canada, my parents vacation home on Pawleys Island,SC, The Grand Canyon, Disneyland, Disney World, and summer camp.

LaurenSKahn

Luna, your story about the "kitty" that turned out to be a skunk is priceless.

I remember driving with my kids from DC to New England once. My daughter was not feeling too well after she ate her gourmet junk breakfast in one of the Maryland House locations on Rte 95. I gave her some of that decongestant with a grape flavor they make for kids (My kids are grown and I cannot remember the name).

When we got to the Cross Bronx Expressway--where there are no shoulders and you can't pull over--my daughter made the great announcement.

I yelled, "Do it in your blankey."

Not wanting to soil her precious bunny blankey in that fashion, she did it all over the car. The sweet smell of Maryland House breakfast tinged with grape medicine wafted from the back seat into the front of the car. When we got to Connecticut I stopped and bailed out the car as best I could. It stank until we got to wherever we were going. To get the smell out of the car I remember buying a bottle of disinfectant and leaving it open in the car overnight. The car stank of disinfectant after that, but it was a better odor than what had been the contents of my daughter's stomach.

It is funny that you always remember the disasters from trips. I cannot tell you what our destination was, but I do remember the mess in the car. When it happened, it was not funny.

Now it is.

By the way, my daughter took the remains of her bunny blankey to college. She probably still has it in Germany, where she currently works and lives. At this point it is pretty soiled and shredded.

LaurenSKahn

I have another funny story to share:

When the kids were 10 & 12 we took the Scotia Prince ferry from Portand, Maine, to Yarmouth, Nova Scotia. Going over you go at night, so it was eat dinner and then to bed.

Coming back from Yarmouth, you spend 11 hours on the boat during the day. There is a lot of gambling once the boat got into international waters. The kids, of course, were not permitted in the casino, but there was one machine in which you dropped quarters and sometimes quarters came out. The odds were, of course, that you would lose all your money.

I gave each child a $10 roll of quarters and told them they could spend it in the souvenir shop or waste it in the stupid gambling machine. You know what they did. The money did not last long.

My 12 year-old daughter returned to me and announced, "You see before you the wreck of a fallen woman. Can I have some more money?" She did not get the money, but I loved the line. My mother, who traveled with us on that home exchange, thought it was funny too.

By the way, the kids loved the boat. We had a cabin and they said they were on a cruise. It turned out to be one of the highlights of the trip and I still have the photo of the two of them with the Scotia Prince "lion" up on the wall. We still have two stuffed Scotia Prince lions floating around somewhere in the house.