Are You In -- Incubus

So we've been discussing taking our first family vacation together, and in doing so I have been reminded of vacations past...

Once we went to St. Augustine, Florida, the oldest city in the country. We were headed to St. Petersburg, but Dad had always wanted to go and we were in for the ride.

We didn't mind reading our books and listening to music in the cool car, but on the day we went to see historical St. Augustine it was sweltering. When we arrived, we went on our own little tour around the place and stopped across from the old jail. There were benches there, and a few of us made ourselves as comfortable as possible with sweat dripping down our faces, necks, and backs. So there we sat in this absolutely-no-shade of a place and Dad whips out a cigarette and lights it up, leaning up against the wall beside one of the benches. Some random sitting nearby walks up to Dad and informs him that his cigarette smoke is bothering her. He blew one long stream in her direction before shuffling down the paved walk.

We headed in the direction of the old fort and some big gun or something, an laughed about it. I mean, we were outside!But cigarettes are one of those hot topics like money, politics, and religion (and apparently illegal immigrants!), so I will leave it at that.

In my mind, not having perfect recall, all those different vacations coalesce into a myriad of vacation memories.

Once we stopped in Savannah, GA on our way to our Florida vacation destination. The stop was inspired by Sarah, who had just read Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. I remember Savannah being one of the most beautiful cities I'd ever seen with its large old homes and We visited the Bonaventure Cemetery there and marveled at the amazing angel statues that adorned the graves.


We had a lot of good vacations when we were younger, and quite a few good ones since we've grown and started our own families. I will never forget riding down the road with Mom behind the wheel and we were all wearing our shades while singing along to our favorite music. Just us girls in one car, and Daniel and Dad in the other.

I'll also never forget the night we drove nearly straight through to Florida, and while stopping for gas, someone shut my pinky finger in the door. And the door latched! A few hours later we stopped to sleep at a rest area for a while and I woke to the throbbing pain in my finger, which, in my sleep, I had rested my head on that hand. In the uncomfortable position I was in in the car, I tossed and turned, watching the sky lighten. I tried lowering the window to find relief from the muggy inside of the car, only to let in mosquitoes with the cooler, but not much less muggy air. After the pain from my finger went away, we had a good vacation.

I also remember the time that we arrived extra early in St. Petersburg and our room wouldn't be ready for at least a few hours. We stopped by the wharf at an Ihop to eat breakfast, but as soon as we all piled out of the car the stinky smell of fish overwhelmed us, and suddenly I didn't feel like eating breakfast. But we did anyway, and smelled the smell on the way back out to the car. I don't think anyone should put a restaurant near a wharf--or anywhere else that smells like dead fish.

When we were really young we went to Kiawah Island with our Aunt, Uncle, cousins and Grandma Roark. When we arrived, we went immediately to the beach and I began hopping in the shallow tidal pools until I went into one that wasn't so shallow. I don't really know what happened, whether it was super deep, or whether I just fell into it and it seemed so deep, but I remember being pulled up, soaking wet, into the cool evening air. I was wearing my favorite sweater.

At Kiawah Island our rental came with some bikes and Dad took me for a ride that I won't soon forget. We had one of those bikes that has the kid seat on the back. Dad put me in and off we went to ride on the beach. That day there were jellyfish washed up all over the beach. We (and by we I mean Dad) decided it would be fun to run over the jellyfish. The were squishy and made a little bump when we went over them. Sure, it was fun, until we hit one that wasn't as squishy as the others and we went down, hard. After all the crying I insisted that Dad not run over any more jelly fish for the rest of the ride.

Well, that's all for now, but there are many more vacation stories to tell...