The Best Vacations Ever

Looking for that perfect trip to take with your children? It's always difficult to find something that will be fun for the whole family. After you've been to Disneyland, what's left? Take your kids on a REAL vacation! When I was a kid, my parents took me on the best vacations ever - extended camping trips to Yellowstone and the Grand Canyon.

My Mom piled her parents, her husband, her three kids, and a nephew or two in our camper and trundled us off cross-country to the most beautiful spots in America. Now, this wasn't one of those comfy Winnebagos. Our camper was the size of your run-of-the-mill Ford truck (you know, the kind on 100,000 mile commercials) with a camper shell fused to the back.

Our Toyota Dolphin with the brown stripe down the side had rainbow stickers in the windows and ten years under it's belt when we bought it. We took it to Yellowstone with nine people packed into that itty bitty living space! On the way to the Grand Canyon, we were pretty comfy with only eight of us.

At night, six of us could sleep in the camper. My sister, Holly, and I slept on the top camper bed, over the truck's cab. My parents pulled out a piece of wood below the sofa cushion in the back, making ita hideabed. My brother, Jimmy, slept in the space under my mother. (I tried it once, it was sort of like sleeping under a table.) We let a cousin sleep in the cab of the camper, but the truck was a manual transmission with bucket seats, so we put the kitchen table up there to make it more comfortable. My grandparents and oldest cousin had to sleep outside.

It was so soothing to fall asleep to the pitter patter of rain, then wake up early to accompany Grandma to the closest laundromat, so she could dry all the sleeping bags before packing them away. She'd tell me all about how lucky she was that we'd brought air mattresses to make sleeping in the tent more comfortable, because she'd been floating on hers over streams of water sheeting down the hill Grandpa had chosen for their tent.

During the day, I got to eat all my favorite foods over and over again: hotdogs, spaghetti, macaroni & cheese, and all the baloney I could eat. (For some reason, my only competition for the baloney was my cousin Brice.)

My Grandpa has been complaining ever since about being hungry all the time on those trips. He was happy when he got home and found out he'd lost 15 pounds! My Mom and Grandma each lost weight 10 pounds on the trip. It must have been all the healthy exercise we got, because there was always plenty of baloney.

It was great! What could be better than having Mom and Grandma in the back seat to play games for hours on end? Besides, of course, getting to play with your older, oh-so-cool, cousins whom you rarely get to see. Unfortunately, my cousin Todd locked himself into our tiny bathroom, calling it his "office", for hours on end. I don't know what he was doing in there - writing on the toilet paper?

Of course, the best part of our trips was seeing and learning about the wonders of our world. Most of us saw a lot of wildlife (though we had to stop every time there was something interesting, because it was a little difficult to see out from the back of the camper through its tiny windows). We saw animals we'd never seen before, like swans, bison, and a bear!

In Yellowstone, we saw mud pots, mineral pools, and geysers erupting all around us. Poor Todd, Holly and Dad had colds when we got to the geysers, and just wanted to sleep in the camper, but Brice got so excited that he took a whole roll of film in less than five minutes running from geyser to geyser. Grandma and I took the boardwalk at a more leisurely pace, but I still remember Beehive, the Twins, and Old Faithful spitting hot water into the air like fourth of July fireworks.

At the Grand Canyon, we were so excited by the view that we ran along the trail turning cartwheels. I don't know why Mom and Grandma were so upset. We were at least five feet from the edge.

Yellowstone and the Grand Canyon were the best known natural wonders we saw, but the most spectacular display of nature was at camp in Monument Valley. We had a lightning storm. It was so cool! Can you imagine the lightning flickering between towering stands of rock? Lightning even struck a monument not far from camp. We could all see the cloud of dust it raised, and hear the rumble of thunder and falling rock.

My sister, my cousin Johnny, and I ran from the plain at the edge of camp to the bathroom in the center of the campground, and back, dancing in the rain. At one point, Johnny peeked into the camper to find my Grandma kneeling on the floor, rocking back and forth, praying for our lives.

It worked! A beautiful double rainbow arched between the monuments. We lived, and we had the best vacation ever. Ask anyone who came! Give your kids the best vacation ever. Take them on an extended camping trip with your parents and a few of their friends. You'll have fun, they'll learn about the world, and you can lose weight while having all the baloney you can eat!

WARNING: This speech went a few seconds overtime. When you are practising a humorous speech, especially for a contest, make sure you allow at least a minute for laughter interruptions. I also have a problem forgetting what I was going to say in front of an audience, and I have to take that more into account. The judges DO look favorably upon those who push the time limits, but don't risk disqualification. Prepare details that can be cut out if you are running overtime.

last updated September 7, 1999