Banner by Kelly
Thirteen Vacation Experiences I Don’t Necessarily Have To Repeat
1. Camping on a beach during a torrential downpour. OH SWEET MERCY, the sand. OH SWEET MERCY, the sticky, wet sand.
2. Camping at a state park. Okay, technically that was a cabin and not a tent. But, you know, there was lots of nature there, and while I may not have told you this before, nature makes me itch.
3. A pesky little case of sun poisoning (remember, I have no melanin to speak of – the sun is not my friend) that caused me to throw up FOURTEEN TIMES on the van ride back home from the beach, and my youth group leader wouldn’t pull over, so I had to get sick in Ziploc bags and paper cups. Which my friend Beverly then threw out the window as we traveled down the interstate at a high rate of speed.
OH YEAH. Put THAT in a brochure and watch the people flock to your advertised destination.
4. Seven college girls in a car designed to seat five (four comfortably). In New Orleans. In August. It was the hottest (and as a direct result, angriest) I’ve ever been in my life.
5. Sleeping two girls to a TWIN bed on that same trip. We were in college, had no money, and got the cheapest rooms possible. I slept for approximately 44 minutes that night (in all fairness, we still had fun – but my grown-up self doesn’t know how my younger self did it).
6. Sleeping on a pull-out couch with a wafer-thin mattress and springs that were constructed from, as best I could determine, barbed wire.
7. A fourteen hour van ride with an unreliable air conditioner, an AM radio and a gaggle of junior high students.
8. A hotel room that was apparently rented by tobacco companies to test how many cigarettes it might take to make the smell of smoke linger FOREVER.
9. Y’all aren’t going to believe this, but one time I got really sick from sun poisoning in Panama City, and my youth group leader would not stop the van for me to throw up! Have you ever heard of such?
10. Being spanked by my daddy on the front steps of the Oklahoma State Capitol. Don’t worry – it wasn’t recently. I was three. And we actually have pictures of me pouting afterwards.
11. Staying in a hotel room in Chattanooga with my parents and having to SLEEP IN THE TUB because Daddy was snoring so loudly that the tub was the only possible place to escape. And I still had to put a pillow over my ear. And shut the bathroom door.
Good times.
12. A sleepless night in a hotel in NYC with Sister and Paige. We had some foul-mouthed revelers next door – and in addition to screaming every cuss word known to man (as well as some original constructions that, while nonsensical, were equally as offensive), they seemed to believe that alternately beating on the wall and slamming the door were excellent outlets for drunken expression.
13. Did I mention the time my youth group leader wouldn’t stop the van when I had sun poisoning and was throwing up many times consecutively in a row back-to-back without stopping?
By the way, fun side note: in betwixt my episodes of violent wretching, I could hear this guy in the back of the van say stuff like, “THAT IT SO GROSS” and “CAN’T SOMEBODY MAKE HER STOP?”
You will be delighted to know that Mr. Sensitivity is now my husband. Oh, the stories we’ll have for our grandchildren.
Oh gosh. Please tell me that I’m not responsible for #6. Oh shoot! I can’t remember. I mean I usually give the guests the main bedroom and I would sleep on the pullout sofabed, but maybe I didn’t that time. If it was me I’m sorry. I really am. I must’ve been so out of my mind crazy with work and I wasn’t thinking right at the time. Sorry again.
Easy, TT. It wasn’t at your house. It was in a lovely lakeside room my daddy reserved one time in Arkansas. And yes, you did give us the main bedroom, being a kind Southern boy and all. :-)
Hi Boomama. I’m de-lurking here. I’m glad that I checked in on your blog before heading off to bed. I needed a good laugh and you provided!!
Oh how I love starting my morning with your posts!
I remember a youth group trip and my friend Holly kept begging for them to stop the bus so she could use the bathroom. They finally stopped, then videotaped Holly running in the gas station to go- but she didn’t make it. She wet her pants and then told her close friends when she got back to the bus. (You couldn’t see it. Thank goodness!)
Stop with the throwing up, already! I can’t decide whether to laugh or puke.!! It’s enough to just make me want to stay home.
You are hysterical. I came here from Sarah’s site. Put this one for me…20+ hrs on a bus with 40 HS students when I chapperoned a Young Life ski trip from Huntsville to Colorado 3 Christmases ago.
Camping on the beach huh? I fthe weather was nice, i would love to try that.
Well, I do hope you have 13 equally joyful vacation experiences to offset the thirteen bad ones…..all I can say is that you are a TROOPER! I’d have given up vacationing a long time ago!! But then you’d have to give up the subject for humor, so no, I changed my mind. Keep up the trips! You are a hoot!! Funny about your dh, but NOT so funny about the youth director NOT stopping for you….ewww….
Oh my WORD, BooMama, you crack me up!
Bwahahahaha! That was great. :)
It’s just like a morning cup of coffee. I can go about my day now. =)
OH! Laughing so hard…girlfriend, you make vomit funnier than anyone I know. And I THINK that’s a compliment.
Perhaps I am just a tiny bit slightly relieved that I couldn’t go to Paula Deen’s with you and the girls… If you started vomiting, then so would I and then the car would NEVER have made it to Georgia. Sad times would have been had by all, well maybe not Addie, she would just make a song out of all the upchuck rhythms.
a-hahahahahhahahahahhaha.
It WAY too early to be laughing THIS hard.
Boomama, you make me laugh! And everyone needs a good laugh with boys running around the house and a hubby out of town. Thanks!
And I love that Mr. Sensitivity turned out to be your husband!
HAHAHAHA. You’re so funny. I always enjoy reading!
Oh, how happy I am that you finally put a link to my MOST FAVORITE POST THAT YOU HAVE EVER WRITTEN!!!!! Thank you, thank you, thank you, Boomama!! Now if everyone will just READ IT!!! I promise I’m not gonna get started on this again, though…I promise. But thank you anyway.
some of your memories are precisely why I don’t camp anymore and why I am no longer a high school youth leader….fun times.
my tt is posted too.
It’s probably a good thing you had a fabulous pregnancy; if I’d have married Mr. Sensitivity, he’d have run away quickly at the amount of morning sickness. Blech.
And maybe you should stay home?
My trip not-to-repeat would be a stay in a hotel that I swear used to be an insane asylum while we were traveling to sing up in WV. And I would’ve gotten that van off the road somehow!! LOL!
Mine are up here and here!
Carry On BooMaMa! Vacations can only get better from there!
I currently consider anything under a 4 star hotel camping, except for with kids and then a 3 star with a fabulous review might be okay. . .and a pool and breakfast and a great fitness room. . .
Prayers for my hubby this morning please, He is stuck at Heathrow Airport after the terrorist threat was thwarted. Trying to book flight home. It’s his first trip “across the pond”.
Keep that pen (uh, keyboard) compossing, loving it.
I can’t believe that tanning salon named each of their beds. Bora Bora indeed. Somehow I’d missed this post. I’m pretty sure it’s funnier than your mama and the catfish farm which I didn’t think was possible. And I’m surprised you could slide into your car at all since, you know, you were nekkid in that tanning bed.
Obviously I had Bora Bora on the brain when I wrote that comment.
My first thought was that I don’t think I have that many bad vacation experiences…but then you mentioned vomit and suddenly there were several that came back to me LOL The ones that didn’t include vomiting probably included critters…I don’t do nature or critters…
You crack me up!
Daddy doesn’t snore! Just ask him.
I slept through the foul-mouth revelers in NYC. Because I have a clear conscience. ;)
xo,
Oh, that is hilarious! That silly driver should have stopped for you!!
Sounds like you’ve been on some doozeys – great idea for a post, esp at the end of summer, when many of us could add a story of our own!
Merritt,
You’re right! The tragic Bora Bora event of the late 80s is one of BooMama’s best, but I’m probably partial to it, because I witnessed the actual occurence in all its glory.
Miss you! We all need to find a time to get together very soon. (Liz, that means you too!)
Oh perfection! I love the fact your husband was able to get past your projectile expressions! Ha!
Me thinks you have had too many sunny vacations and bad hotels. Time for an Alaskan cruise!
Oh, was that YOU I saw flinging bags of yak out on the highway that time?! (Just kidding)
You are too funny. :)
Oh, dear! I hope there have been some good vacation experiences to make up for those!
And I think you need to fess up to whatever earned you a spanking on the capital steps no less. ;)
My TT is up, too!
http://southern-born-and-bred.blogspot.com
And I bet you never let hubby forget it–I wouldn’t! hahahah–great post :-)
Boomama, you made me laugh out loud, and I do not even know you!! So, I just have to know, when your future husband was being so helpful and supportive in your time of GREAT need, was it love at first sight?!
I think I am becoming some sort of honorary blogger (or is it stalker:). I have been reading yours and Sarah’s. If one wanted to start blogging, how exactly would one get started? And if one did start officially blogging, would one get addicted?! Just curious…
Kristi from NC
Kristi – go to blogger.com to get started (takes about 5 minutes) – and yes, one WOULD get addicted. Quickly. :-) But it’s a good thing.
Youth leaders stop for Nothing~lol~~
Sweet, that part about Mr. Sensitivity!
Ah – memories of youth. I can absolutely identify with the throwing up. When I was a kid, vacation of no I was in the backseat trying desperately not to throw up. I always had car sickness so bad I was nauseaus before we got half way down our street.
I love your blog.
my husband has suggested i might have to stop reading your blog since he’s noticed all the msu stuff. i’ve tried to tell him not everyone can be an arkansas razorback fan. he’s nutty like that.
Melissa – would “nutty” be a pun on Houston Nutt? Or have I lived in the land of SEC football too long? And I’m thinking that between you, Diane, and Shannon, we may all have to listen to a few “Woo Pig” calls during football season. :-)
Sleep in a Tub? That’s funny!
The youth leader that wouldn’t stop the van is cracking me up! I can’t tell you how many times I almost wet my pants on church youth group trips. The crowning detail is that your husband was Mr. Sensitivity!
ah Boo, you do keep my laughing!!
I agree with Merritt and Daph! I could read the Derby Day post over and over and never get tired of it! In fact, I’m going to go read it again. Thanks for the laughs!
Daphne,
You’re sweet to include me. I need a weekend with you wacky gals!
LOOK! MY COLLEGE FRIENDS! COMMENTING TO EACH OTHER IN THE COMMENTS!
Ah. The world is once again in fine working order.
;-)
You make me long for stories like this with you, I’ll bring the ziplocs!
OOHHH~ That is hilarious. Don’t ever let him forget he said that!!!
that is soooo funny!
i can’t believe that youth worker wouldn’t stop!! as a former youth worker, i tell you, I definitely would have stopped!!