Summer vacations in the good ol' days
It's summer and for some that means family vacation time. I can't help but think of National Lampoon's "Vacation" whenever someone mentions a family trip. For those of you who don't know this movie, the end of this column may be a bit vague. For those who've seen the movie, you'll be able to associate yourself with at least one of the characters. I was.
I remember vacations when I was a child. My parents liked to camp, so we traveled many miles pulling a camper. I didn't consider these "real" vacations because we didn't stay in motels and we didn't eat out. I guess they were "vacations on a shoestring."
Most of our vacations were five or six days — I guess that's as long as our parents could put up with us. Sometimes we pulled the camper to the county lake or Middle Creek out east of town. Other times we went to Missouri, with trips to Branson and St. Louis being the most memorable.
By the time I was in middle school, the joy of camping had dimmed and we started taking "real" vacations. The first one I remember was a trip to Yellowstone National Park. We covered a lot of territory — driving hundreds of miles a day — in less than a week. We saw the gushing geyser, Old Faithful and the Black Hills and Badlands of South Dakota.
This was back in the day before seat belts were mandatory so my sister and I took turns sitting on the "hump" in the back seat. It drove our mother crazy when we hung over the front seat, asking questions and behaving like two kids cooped up in a car for several days.
My dad was, and still is, a very relaxed vacationer. All he had to do was drive. For my mother vacations were just the same hassles on a different playing field. She still had to take care of my sister and me.
We did our share of bickering and asking "Are we there yet?" My sister had the ability to read in a car so she read for hours and hours, miles and miles. I get sicker than a dog if I try to read so my choices were limited to picking on her, hanging over the front seat, or sleeping.
After that first "real" vacation my mother vowed "never again." I guess she had a short memory because the following two summers we did the same trip again — taking grandparents each time. Thinking about it now, I'm not sure how we all survived. I guess it's amazing I'm still here. Since I was the obnoxious one with nothing to do but ride, ride, ride, it's a wonder I wasn't left at Yellowstone with the bears or put out alongside the road.
It could have been worse — I might have been tied to the bumper or strapped on top of the car.
— DONNA BERNHARDT
