I was raised by feral wolves. At least that is how it felt every time we took a road trip.
My parents were big on travel adventure, short on planning. Somehow, it always worked out for them. They never bothered with any research or advance bookings. We would just pile into the car and drive. We would arrive at our destination late at night, be the last car through the drive through, then drive around to find a room in a low-end motel. Growing up we thought this was normal.
This same lack of planning defined our Christmas trip to Disney World when I was a young kid. This was a major trip from Canada to Florida at the busiest time of year. Most people spend months planning their Disney vacation, optimizing all variables to navigate the crowds. My parents did zero research. Their only real decision was whether to take a 50 mile detour from the Interstate to see the world’s biggest ball of yarn. Thankfully they did not.
We pulled into a suburb of Orlando at around 10:30 on Christmas Eve. Surprise – everything was closed. This was back in the 1970’s right in the belt buckle of the bible belt, so everything was closed. There wasn’t a single restaurant open. Mercifully, they found a hotel. It was so low end that you could put quarters in a machine to make the bed vibrate. We unpacked the car, tired and hungry.
The only food we had with us was a gingerbread house that my sister had made as a Girl Scout project. It had travelled with us from Canada in the trunk of the car and was still partially frozen. So our family piled on to the vibrating bed and dad fed quarters into the machine while we waited for the gingerbread house to thaw. Then he went down the corridor and came back with a couple of cans of grape soda and a bucket of ice. Feral wolves, I tell you.
There were four of us. Each person got one wall of the gingerbread house for our main course. For desert, we split the roof between us since it had icing and gumdrops. Then we washed it all down with Grape Crush. We fell into our vibrating beds in a sugar coma.
We awoke Christmas morning ready to face the crowds at Disney World. Outside it was freezing. Truly freezing. Florida was in the grip of a rare cold snap. Parents who had done their planning and watched the weather report opted to stay away that day. We were from Canada and had all our cold weather gear, so no problem. And no crowds. We had Disney World to ourselves. Love my parents: somehow it just always worked out for them.
[If you know someone else who might enjoy a lighthearted story to begin their week, kindly forward them the link to WordsfortheWeary. The more the merrier.