A simple getaway yet so many questions.
“Do you have everything packed?”
“Yes, I double checked, what time do we take off?”
“We need to be there in an hour. You took care of the hotel reservations, right?”
All of this hustle and fuss just to get some time away from the real world and take in some relaxation for a change. Throughout my life I’ve traveled to many different places, and each time I come back with a new kind of feeling. It’s funny how a vacation can change a person, whether it be for that short week or so, or for the rest of their life.
When I was six years old my family and I went to the Cayman Islands. The sun beats down on this island so hard they literally have a town named “Hell.” At the hotel there was a local islander in his twenties. He went by the name,“Chizzle.” I was his little buddy that entire trip, and my family grew to know this person and really like him. At the end of the trip flying home, I remember taking off the runway looking out the window at the air strip lights. It was dark out and the city streetlights were just bright enough to see the palm trees glowing along
the street. I knew that I would probably never see “Chizzle” again, and though I didn’t let my parents or brothers see, I started to cry. To this day I still remember him. A vacation can teach you to trust in someone, even if it’s a complete stranger.
A vacation can bring families together. Like when we all went out to California for my cousin Amber’s wedding. Everyone was there. My parents, my brothers, cousins, aunts and uncles, and even Grandpa made the trip. Everything took place outside on a cliff overlooking the ocean. The air was cool and the white christmas lights glowed a dull orange off
of the oak wood dance floor. We danced and sang to songs all night as though we were never going to see each other again, even though we all lived in the same town two-thousand miles
away.
A vacation can also tear families apart. It can be over the smallest things and at the most random times. Six months after the wedding in California we went to Disney World in
Orlando. I ran away from my parents at EPCOT park. My dad embarrassed me in front of a bathroom full of strangers because my shorts were on backwards. It was the breaking
point for me, as the entire day up to this point had gone horribly.
I sat on a bench out in the distance as I watched my family frantically looking for me, and after a long-while I knew that I had to go back to them. My parents and I didn’t talk much the rest of that trip. It was a mix of my stubbornness and immaturity with my parents’ disappointment and rage that left us resenting each other for the rest of the trip.
My parents always took me to a lot of tropical places like the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico. In Florida one time, we picked the hottest day of our trip to go to the beach. After spending the entire time under the sun with no water I suffered a heat stroke that kept me up vomiting the whole night. It felt like it was never going to end. Vacations can make you sick.
We took four days to drive out to California. It was my best friend and I, on our way to our new place in Santa Barbara to go to school. Though, the road trip itself was more pleasing than the year spent in California. The air conditioning in the car didn’t work so the windows were rolled down throughout the whole drive, letting the wind smack our faces and let our
hair flow to the sound of the music in the CD player set to maximum volume. In every state we stopped to look around and see these things we had never seen before. The Rockies in Colorado, which were visible for hours before we actually made the first ascent into them. In Utah, the canyons were a bright red-orange that matched the same color of shoes that I was wearing at the time. And then finally getting to California and driving on the 101, and letting the ocean breeze cool off the car that was still scorching from the desert sun.
A vacation is magnificent. It can rejuvenate a person, it can make you feel sad and happy. A simple getaway can help you find yourself, and help you learn things that you would have never known before. The best thing about a vacation is it's reminder to us that the world is a lovely place, and that is something that
should never be taken for granted.
“Do you have everything packed?”
“Yes, I double checked, what time do we take off?”
“We need to be there in an hour. You took care of the hotel reservations, right?”
All of this hustle and fuss just to get some time away from the real world and take in some relaxation for a change. Throughout my life I’ve traveled to many different places, and each time I come back with a new kind of feeling. It’s funny how a vacation can change a person, whether it be for that short week or so, or for the rest of their life.
When I was six years old my family and I went to the Cayman Islands. The sun beats down on this island so hard they literally have a town named “Hell.” At the hotel there was a local islander in his twenties. He went by the name,“Chizzle.” I was his little buddy that entire trip, and my family grew to know this person and really like him. At the end of the trip flying home, I remember taking off the runway looking out the window at the air strip lights. It was dark out and the city streetlights were just bright enough to see the palm trees glowing along
the street. I knew that I would probably never see “Chizzle” again, and though I didn’t let my parents or brothers see, I started to cry. To this day I still remember him. A vacation can teach you to trust in someone, even if it’s a complete stranger.
A vacation can bring families together. Like when we all went out to California for my cousin Amber’s wedding. Everyone was there. My parents, my brothers, cousins, aunts and uncles, and even Grandpa made the trip. Everything took place outside on a cliff overlooking the ocean. The air was cool and the white christmas lights glowed a dull orange off
of the oak wood dance floor. We danced and sang to songs all night as though we were never going to see each other again, even though we all lived in the same town two-thousand miles
away.
A vacation can also tear families apart. It can be over the smallest things and at the most random times. Six months after the wedding in California we went to Disney World in
Orlando. I ran away from my parents at EPCOT park. My dad embarrassed me in front of a bathroom full of strangers because my shorts were on backwards. It was the breaking
point for me, as the entire day up to this point had gone horribly.
I sat on a bench out in the distance as I watched my family frantically looking for me, and after a long-while I knew that I had to go back to them. My parents and I didn’t talk much the rest of that trip. It was a mix of my stubbornness and immaturity with my parents’ disappointment and rage that left us resenting each other for the rest of the trip.
My parents always took me to a lot of tropical places like the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico. In Florida one time, we picked the hottest day of our trip to go to the beach. After spending the entire time under the sun with no water I suffered a heat stroke that kept me up vomiting the whole night. It felt like it was never going to end. Vacations can make you sick.
We took four days to drive out to California. It was my best friend and I, on our way to our new place in Santa Barbara to go to school. Though, the road trip itself was more pleasing than the year spent in California. The air conditioning in the car didn’t work so the windows were rolled down throughout the whole drive, letting the wind smack our faces and let our
hair flow to the sound of the music in the CD player set to maximum volume. In every state we stopped to look around and see these things we had never seen before. The Rockies in Colorado, which were visible for hours before we actually made the first ascent into them. In Utah, the canyons were a bright red-orange that matched the same color of shoes that I was wearing at the time. And then finally getting to California and driving on the 101, and letting the ocean breeze cool off the car that was still scorching from the desert sun.
A vacation is magnificent. It can rejuvenate a person, it can make you feel sad and happy. A simple getaway can help you find yourself, and help you learn things that you would have never known before. The best thing about a vacation is it's reminder to us that the world is a lovely place, and that is something that
should never be taken for granted.
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