Monday, July 21, 2008

Travel horror stories?



Two orders of business before I get started:

1. It may be a bit strange to start a blog with a writing-prompt challenge, but I'm still trying to shake off the dust and just jump in with the writing and I figured this was the perfect way to force fingers to keyboard.

2. No cute graphic today as either my use of the HTML provided or Blogger isn't functioning properly. I TOLD you I was out of practice! But this post was inspired by Absolutely Bananas (who designed said cute graphic) - check her out for more.
Update: *sigh* I figured it out. Sleep deprivation is a formidable foe!

I've been trying to think of travel horror stories and can honestly, and thankfully, say that I haven't had many as an adult. There was the time we spent 3 hours on the tarmac before our plane even took off for the 10+ hour flight to Japan. That wasn't a walk in the park, but hardly counts as a horror.

No. I think my most horrific travel story reaches back to my early childhood; I couldn't have been more than 7 or 8 years old. My family had gone on a camping trip. I remember waking up very early in the morning after a dream consisting of all the foods I would normally love to eat: ice cream sundaes, whipped cream, cakes, etc. but I felt sick when I woke up. At first I thought my brain had been tricked into thinking that I had over-indulged as a result of the dream, and then I realized I truly was sick. I somehow managed to drag myself to the public restroom (we were at a campground obviously) where I proceeded to toss my cookies quite literally. Ick. Being sick to your stomach is bad enough, add in a public restroom and we've hit a new low. I dragged myself back to my sleeping back and tried to go back to sleep but I felt too awful to sleep.

We were de-camping that day and heading for home. Normally I would have been expected to help with packing everything up but as soon as my mother woke up and realized what was going on, she parked me in a lawn chair and told me not to move. Needless to say the 6+ hour car ride home was not pleasant. I just wanted it all to be over so that I could lay down in my bed and rest. To this day I can't eat those multi-colored flavored marshmallows; that's what we were toasting around the campfire the night before I got so ill. (*shudders*)

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