Family Vacation

Family Vacation

Destination: Gatlinburg Tennessee

What could be more fun than four females on a road trip? We get along fine, I kid you not. I am blessed with family who invite me on vacation. But four of us, cooped up in a car for two days – would it work? We would make it work. My daughter and two grown granddaughters and I, planned to have an rip roaring good time without husband, father and son-in-law Greg who wisely decided to take to the back roads on his new motorcycle. And we were pleased to let him do it. He of the “Why do you want to stop for a soda? You’ll just need a rest stop. We can’t stop at every flee market, antique store you see.” And “If we are going to get to Gatlinburg we have to keep truckin.”

Needless to say, we planned to stop at every flee market, every antique store, every cute restaurant and every time one of us needed to ‘rest.’ And if he made it to the Gatlinburg cabin before us, he could shop for groceries, prepare dinner and wait for us to appear. Our battle cry was ‘of course, we’ll stop for ice cream, we’re on vacation.’

We had every type of snack invented in the car. We weren’t going to get hungry, no siree. Had them handy too. Snacks in the back seat. Snacks in the front seat. There was chocolate – oh was there chocolate. We are related remember and we have chocolate in our genes. There was twizzlers. I really haven’t figured out why people like twizzlers. They taste like flavored wax to me. But I go along with the crowd and chew and chaw like everybody else. We had crackers and cookies and M&M’s. We had water and tea. Like I said we had everything. Everything that is but room.

The Luggage Snafu

And that is where things became interesting. Four adult females on vacation have a lot of baggage. Daughter Dayna has a large luxury car with lots of luggage space but… Besides our luggage, we had a cooler of water and soft drinks and a motorcycle helmet. A motorcycle helmet? How did that get there? Well, let me explain. If any of us gypsies of the road wanted to ride on the new motorcycle, we needed a helmet. Capice? So let’s begin again: that is four suitcases, a motorcycle helmet, a cooler, and each of us had a small bag besides our suitcases. Oh come on, you didn’t expect me to get everything into one small bag did you?

We packed the trunk of the car. We unpacked the trunk of the car. We packed. We unpacked. I gave up. They packed the trunk of the car. They unpacked, they packed. They finally put the cooler in the back seat of the car. Crowded, but that made sense didn’t it? It if we wanted water or tea, it was right there. “Sure, right there, under someone’s feet.”
“Well, we will take turns sitting on that side of the back seat.”
“Grandma can’t sit back there all doubled up. She already has back trouble.” And so – age has priviledges.

Stay tuned for episode number 2 of Family Vacation coming soon.

Family Vacation II

Every experience should teach something to the participants and I want to share my learning experiences while on vacation with my family.


1. Any daughter who takes her mother on a family vacation is very brave. Add a husband and two daughters, ages 21 and 23 plus one daughter’s fiancé and I’d say she is VERRRRRY BRAVE. But my daughter handled it with ease and grace. Thanks D.

2. A man who takes his mother-in-law on a family vacation deserves a medal of honor. Thanks G. for the Gluten Free snacks and for cooking every meal while we were in the cabin. Excuse me, every meal but one. Kristin did the Elliott favorite, Taco Casserole one night.

3. Men don’t need to go the bathroom as often as women. Even after drinking 2 quarts of tea and not making use of the facilities at the previous stop.

4. Above mentioned S-I-L has a messed up sense of timing.
He: “We’ll pick you up at 4:30”
Me: “Are you serious?”
He: “Yep. Serious as a heart attack.”
Me: “I can’t leave without my coffee.”
He: “Take it with you.”
Me: “I haven’t been up that early since - well – I don’t know when.”
He: “If you’re going with me – you will see the sun rise over Kansas.”
His clock didn’t improve while on vacation either.


5. Grandmas don’t know everything. In fact they don’t know anything. They don’t understand the latest music, haven’t seen the latest movie, and don’t watch Youtube.

6. Grandmas tend to embarrass grown grandchildren with stories of when they were younger.

7. Grandmas get the best seat in the van. If she rides in the very back of the van. She’ll get sick and have to barf.

8. Grandma’s short legs are not created to climb into a 12 passenger van.

9. Don’t jump out of the van and run into the t shirt store, planning to catch the van on the next go around. Because you’ll forget your glasses and won’t know what you are buying much less the size.

10. Grandmas get the best bed in the cabin. It is close to the bathroom.

11. Grandmas should not expect to visit cemeteries on vacation, even Boot Heel is off
limits. No one likes to talk about cemeteries while on vacation.

12. Sometimes Grandmas who write get very good material while on vacation.
You will be seeing some on mine soon.

Family Vacation I

I just returned from a long driving vacation with family. My daughter, her husband, their two daughters, one daughter’s fiancé and me. All in a rented van, we survived nearly 4,000 miles to see the Grand Tetons, Yellowstone Nat’l Park, Mt. Rushmore, The Badlands, The Big Horn Mountains and Deadwood. It was a fantastic vacation.

The endless drive across the Nebraska prairie by car made me appreciate the sturdy pioneers who trekked across our great land to settle the west. Then they were confronted with the mountains. Though the mountains are beautiful and greater than anything they had ever seen, they must has thought, “We came this far, how are we to cross these craggy peaks?" But cross them they did, settling along the trails or traveling on toward the great Pacific Ocean.

I would have loved to hear the conversation of the Mountain Men who wandered into the Yellowstone valley of geysers and hot springs. I wish I knew how they made use of the heat. The wild animals there are fabulous even now. Think how abundant they would have been in that far away time.

Herds of antelope along the way made us anticipate what lay before us all the more. The Grand Tetons are truly grand. Snow on the high peaks and cool breezes when we stopped delighted us.

We stayed in a storybook cabin just outside Yellowstone Park. The trek into the park each day was an adventure. Will we see a bear? Will we see a mountain goat? Will we see a buffalo or is it a bison? We saw a species of every animal mentioned in the guide except a mountain goat, a wolf and a black bear. Yes, we saw a grizzly bear and he was close enough you could see him with your naked eye. The bison grazed along the road, Great herds of elk dotted the fields. A nesting eagle along the road attracted motorists who stopped to take pictures in spite of the warning signs not to stop in the road.

Old Faithful is still being faithful and spewing hundreds of feet in the air to the delight of thousands of visitors. Other geysers, waterfalls, the clear rushing rivers and the bubbling mud pots all attracted our cameras eye.

The craggy beauty of the Big Horn Mountains was a wonderful side trip. A quick trip through Deadwood made us wish we could stay and visit Boot Hill, but time was short and there were other things to see. We saw Mt. Rushmore late in the evening, while a group of High School students was getting ready to put on a concert.

It was a beautiful vacation. Stay tuned for Vacation II blog about what I learned on this vacation and if this writer found a story while vacationing.