Vacay Day 4 ~ Yellowstone

When I was a senior in high school our family went on the only family vacation of my childhood .. a road trip to Virginia. I remember how excited my parents were to show us all of the places from when I was a baby. Me, my sister and my brother really could care less. We were typical sullen teenagers and pre-teens. We each had a cassette (yes, I said cassette) headset that was stuck to our ears the entire trip. We had car trouble all the way there, were disappointed that the only place to eat on Christmas night was a dirty Waffle House, and were in the car for hours and hours. We took a day and went to Washington, D.C. I had a new outfit and new boots I wanted to wear. It was the week after Christmas and COLD! I refused to wear a coat because it didn't match my outfit. I bruised my achilles tendon and heel by wearing those boots. At one point my dad slammed on the brakes and yelled at us to turn off those #@&@@# headsets! But I have fond memories of us going on a vacation as a family.

This day in Yellowstone is the day our family fell apart.

I will protect everybody's dignity by not giving specifics, but we all have something to be ashamed of .. many things, actually! Things were said and done that were hurtful to each of us. We actually considered ending the vacation at that time and going home. We were tired, dirty, cold, rained and hailed on, sick of each other and selfish! The worst part of each our personalities had been in full swing since that morning (mine included! in fact, mine had been there for a couple of days!) Every problem we have as a family came spilling out.

We did see Old Faithful that day, but I can't say I enjoyed even one moment of it. I was too distracted. That's unfortunate.

Here is a photo of the kids in front of it.


And here is a photo of us having lunch right before things went south. It literally started moments after this.

After Old Faithful we came back to the campsite and fixed burgers and hot dogs and had a campfire Family Team Meeting. It was heated, and I don't mean the campfire.

We got it all out, resolved to try to leave our selfishness behind so we could enjoy the rest of our vacation, and went to bed.

Although I know we all carried our feelings through the rest of the vacation, we did enjoy the rest of it and saw some cool sites. We even had fun.