Travel Thread:Family Vacations in Retrospect [CBD]

Y-not is otherwise engaged: apparently she is doing a free climb of Mt. Everest to harvest a rare orchid that grows only on the South slope of the mountain.

Remember all of those interminable trips you took with your family? The ones where you were unsure whether your dad's threat to "pull this damned car over and leave you all in the desert" was actually serious?

The realization that you could beat on your younger brother or sister for only so long before it got boring made the trip even more painful. And who cares that some guys spent 15 years carving 60 foot tall heads into solid granite at the top of a mountain in South Dakota? I saw them when I was eight-years-old, and I sure didn't care much then. But now? Every time I see a photo of those magnificent edifices I recall that trip. Hell...whenever I read anything about Teddy Roosevelt I think of how big his nose is on that mountain!

So.....what are those trips from your youth that echo in your adult life?

Here are some of mine...I guess my parents weren't as stupid as I supposed.

My parents dragged us to the Western Wall (Wailing Wall) just two months after Israel reconquered Jerusalem in 1967. I remember looking at the wall and wondering why they used different sized stones -- big ones on the bottom and small ones at the top. And why was everyone so happy? it was just a wall.

The events leading up to the Norman conquest, and it was really cool to look at! There was even a big battle at the end!

A mini history of the Roman Catholic Church, and it was about 30 degrees cooler inside than outside.

posted by Open Blogger at 05:30 PM

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