I know I am not alone in saying that more often than I care to admit, I feel like a complete and utter Clark W. Griswold.
No matter how much time and planning I put into a big family outing or event, no matter how excited I get about it, and no matter how much time I spend working out the details, it always manages to turn into a disaster.
There's a point to all this, so stick with me.
For the last several years I've planned a mini-vacation for my family in the days following Christmas and we have usually stayed through New Year's Day. Last year, we stayed at a nice Airbnb near the Ark Encounter, visited the park and their incredible Christmas lights, then hit a Great Wolf Lodge for a couple nights. I broke my toe on that trip, kids got sick on the Wolf's food, and my wife had something called a double sinus infection almost the entire time.
The year before that, we used a postponed resort stay during Covid shutdowns to fly out to Arizona. The resort had a waterpark, but the state was hit with unseasonably cold temperatures and no one wanted to be outside. The kids tried the pool one day but were miserable. We hit up a couple museums and Jenny got a Starbucks mug that said "Arizona" just in case one day someone demanded proof that we had actually been there.
So I suppose I should have seen this year's frustrations coming.
About a month before Christmas I decided to pull the trigger on reserving a cabin at Red River Gorge in Kentucky. It was within driving distance, and we'd never done a cabin before. It had trails, a hot tub, some cool underground cave activities nearby (always at a steady 55 degrees summer or winter), and even the possibility of zip-lining if it was warm enough. And as an added bonus for the kids and my wife, I got the pet-friendly cabin so we could take our 2-year-old dog with us. They all love him and hate boarding him when we take trips. I tolerate him because I have to.
We got there much later than planned on Monday night after icy roads caused us to have to drive very slowly through the tight mountain curves. Our keycode did not work for the front door lock, but I managed to gain access regardless (don't ask questions). Once everyone was settled inside, I turned the fireplace on, grabbed my computer to crank out a Not the Bee column for the next day. That's when I noticed the internet was down. We were too late to call the office for help, so I shut the computer and went to bed.
The next morning my wife and I awoke to one of our daughters telling us she had just "destroyed the toilet" but couldn't get it to flush. I told her I would take care of it after I ran through the shower. About a minute later, I realized why her bathroom had become a biohazard waste dump – we had no running water. I called the cabin rental office and they confirmed the entire county was shut down because of a broken water main but that we'd be back up and running by noon. We headed out for the day, feeling gross, but confident that we'd just gotten through our one snafu for the trip.
About 8 pm, we got back, dirty, cold, and hungry. Jen was going to start supper while I worked on the toilet and the kids took their showers. We still had no water. Ten minutes later my eldest daughter began having some kind of allergic reaction – to what, we don't know. With no cell reception, I hopped on my computer to figure out the closest emergency room should we need it. No internet.
Rather than wait to see if she blew up into a modern-day Violet from Willy Wonka, we threw some clothes in a suitcase and headed out the door. An hour later we were at a Days Inn roadside motel somewhere in Off The Grid, Kentucky. A random Benadryl pill we had in the vehicle had slowed the reaction and we got her through a shower. By 3 am we were all in bed. That includes the stupid dog that we had to pay an extra $100 for – just so he could go ballistic at 6 am when other travelers were getting up and heading out of their rooms for the day. No one could get back to sleep. Days Inn had run out of continental breakfast at the end of last week and hadn't replenished, but luckily there was a nearby gas station that had a Honey Bun for each kid.
We got back to the cabin to find there was still no water, but sewage had started to back up in the pipes. I called the office to tell them we were leaving a day early, and they said just to be sure that I logged on and filled out the proper forms before departing. As the family loaded the vehicle, I grabbed my computer to follow instructions. No internet.
Laughing to myself (what else can you do?), I grabbed my bag and headed towards the car. And as if the universe wanted to give me just one last punch to the groin, somewhere between the cabin and the vehicle door I managed to step in the feces of our stupid dog.
I wish I could tell you that I kept my good humor through the whole disaster, but I didn't. The stress got to me, I let the frustrations provoke my temper a time or two, and I had some pretty choice words I wanted to put in an email to the people who had taken my money for this vacation from you-know-where. Luckily for them, I had no internet or cell reception to be able to do so.
But the moment I returned to civilization and got on my computer to start catching up on all my work, I opened an email from an old friend who was confiding in me that he'd just been diagnosed with some severe, potentially life-threatening medical issues that had come on suddenly. He'd spent three days begging doctors to put him in a coma so he could avoid the pain until they could figure out what he was dealing with.
And just like that, a broken water main and spotty cell service didn't seem like such a big deal.
Frustrations are real and stress is legitimate – but life is a gift, and perspective makes all the difference in the world.
