What was your favorite road-trip of all time?
Submitted by bodhibound.
This was not my favorite road-trip of all time, but it's a decent story and since I've been having a heck of a time with thoughts of my own, I'll take hotrod's advice and answer some of these inane questions of the day.
Back in the day,circa 1985, when I was but a youngin', we had an aunt who lived in Ohio I do believe. Aunt Anne (not to be confused with Auntie Anne's) was her name and as far as I could tell as a 12 year-old, she was loaded! If, by chance, you are unfamiliar with relatives in a black person's perspective, every friend of your parents becomes an aunt or uncle no matter if they share blood or not.
Aunt Anne's favorite relative was my mom. (I think they were actually related in some way, but I digress.) Since mom was the favorite, AA decided that our whole family would be invited on vacation. We were going on a cruise! Until the very last minute, my father debated on whether or not he would go. He ended up missing it because he had to work. Kinda sucked for him but I think he was glad to have the house to himself for all that time.
As one of the children, I wasn't privvy to all of the travel arrangements. All I knew is that we were going on a cruise. Mom packed us all up and we were ready to go. We sat around the house anxiously awaiting our departure. Little did we know that we would not be flying from our closest airport of Pittsburgh International, but we would proceed, all the way to Florida, Miami if I'm not mistaken, in AA's winnebago. So, there we were, all packed and ready to go and somewhat disappointed that we wouldn't be flying. Unbeknowst to us, inside the winnebago were two kids about our age that were supposedly related to us. One girl and one boy. Shame on me for not being able to remember their names. Also inside were Butch, of some relation to AA and our driver, and Deeanne, also a relation and not a nice person.
Off we drove into the sunset on our merry way. At this point, I don't remember the exact route that we took. I do know that it took forever, or it at least seemed like it. I'm sure that we had been in that hotbox for at least two days when we stopped for an overnight at a KOA. It was too hot to sit inside the winnebago and besides that there was nothing to do in there, so that hot and humid evening, we sat outside. There was a picnic table just outside of our RV and that is where I sat with my mom. She sat on the tabletop and I sat on the bench as she re-braided my hair. After much fidgeting on my part and much hair pulling on hers, I was finally done all neat and pretty. We continued to sit in the same positions chatting.
On a muggy summer night, there are bound to be mosquitos, and this night was no different. One ghettofabulous remedy coming right up. No Off!? No problem. Substitute it with rubbing alcohol. Hey, it works! Mosquitos don't like it. It's also probably not that good for your skin. What it's the worst for is your eyes. Mom was a little clumsy with her splashing and managed to splash a good handful of rubbing alcohol directly into my eyes.
Have you ever had rubbing alcohol in your eye? Trust me, it's not fun. It burns, most likely on a mace level. You've never seen a 12 year old with 'ups' like I had that night. I'm certain that I jumped up at least to current day slam dunk levels after which I immediately began rolling around screaming like a scalded dog. My mom tried to quiet me down as it was late and I was really causing a ruckus but I was having none of that. After a while, the burning subsided and my vision returned. I'm pretty sure that I was a little on the bitter side regarding that incident, but that was before the time of me holding grudges.
We pressed on towards Florida the next day. I distinctly remember going through Georgia, not only because I know now that we HAD to go through Georgia, but because somewhere along the lines, that state was the breaking point.
Mom and Deeann really just didn't like each other. To this day I don't know why. What I do know is that everything came to a boil in the middle of our drive. Everything happened so quickly that I wouldn't be able to retell it properly if I tried. Best I can tell you is that fists were flying and Deeann was taking the brunt of them. I know Mom didn't start it, but she sure as hell finished it. By the time Butch got that monstrosity pulled over, Mom had thoroughly whipped that nasty bitch's ass. AA was having none of this and at the first available relative's place, Deeanne got left. HAHAHAHAHAHA! That'll teach you to mess with my mom.
The remainder of the road trip to Florida was uneventful. We got there, made our departure, made friends with our favorite waiter who brought us hot chocolate every night (and once spilled it in my brother's lap), visited Nassau and Freeport, and I entered the talent show with my monkey hand puppet named Georgette. We took second place. Even at that age, I was convinced that we didn't win first only because I wasn't old enough for the prize of a bottle of champagne.
I've had plenty of road trips, some more pleasant than others, but by far, this one was the most memorable.
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