Mr. Potter died when I was seven. He was my aunt's father, but I didn't know that at the time. To me, he was just a nice old guy I saw on birthdays and holidays who'd give me money. He had a Winnebago that he and his wife were going to travel the country in, but never did. So after he died, my aunt Betty decided we should take it on a trip to see what it would be like. So ten of us, Uncle Jay, Betty, their kids Andrea, Kristin, Joel, Jon, my parents, my younger brother Ryan and me, went on a trip to Busch Gardens.
From left to right: Kristin, Jon...or Joel, my dad,
Ryan, my mom, Andrea, me, Betty, the other twin, Jay.
We took the Winnebago and my parents' station wagon and set off on a mishap-laden adventure that we still talk about today. My mom drove the Winnebago for exactly one block before it was decided maybe someone else should take the wheel. At one point, the car broke down on the side of the rode right next to a bag of rotting fish. So we were standing on the side of the road with a stinking bag of fish guts in the middle of August, waiting for AAA. Later, my then three-year-old brother Ryan announced he had a string in his throat, which my parents didn't understand until he threw up all over the place. Joel and Jon were in the back of the station wagon, banging on the back hatch for dear life for someone to let them out.
We made a stop at a campsite and we were all supposed to go to a waterpark, but I got stung by a bee. My dad said it was because God was punishing me for whatever I did earlier. So my uncle's family went to the water park, and my family stayed behind for a while. When we did finally go, instead of going to the big water park, we went to the cheap, broken down one across the street. My mom took Ryan on a slide with her and her mat flipped over at the bottom, and for a while she was underwater on top of Ryan. None of the attendants at the park even offered to help. To this day, neither one of them has gone back on a water slide. Meanwhile, the slide I was on didn't have enough water on the slide part to make it slippery, so I stopped halfway down. I wasn't sure what to do, so I stood up. Then the guy that went down behind me crashed into me, and there was much screaming and confusion all the way down. Also, some other guy grabbed me out of the pool because I was floating face down trying to see how long I could hold my breath and he thought I was drowning. He got pretty mad.
Then there's my dad, who carefully walked all the way across the German-themed food court in Busch Gardens, with a lederhosen-clad Um-pa band playing in the background, carrying a pizza and a pitcher of Sprite all the way from the Italy-themed section of the park until finally spilling the pitcher all over the pizza when he put them on the table. Looking equally embarrassed and angry, and certainly not about to walk all the way back to get Italy to get another pizza, he clenched his teeth and said "You're gonna EAT that pizza and you're gonna LIKE it!" My mom grabbed some napkins and mopped up most of the soda.
As soon as we got back, my aunt sold the Winnebago. That trip became the template for every vavaction my family's been on since then. What a great trip.
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