One of my favorite things to do is to plan trips, and if I can rope friends into joining us, all the better. My nick-name is tour guide Barbie-- because I love to obsessively plan out all the fun we are going to have. I began to laugh as I remembered various stories from various trips we have taken. We have some really funny stories.
The first one I remembered was when I went on a cruise with a friend of mine. She is a travel agent and at the time, she went on "training" cruises to learn about the cruise and what she would be selling to clients. Normally her husband went with her for a reduced rate. However, he couldn't go and so she asked me to go with her. One of our stops was at Grand Cayman. She's not a swimmer, but the best sites of Grand Cayman are underneath the water. So I had a grand idea of taking an underwater 2 person mini-sub down below so she could check things out. No problem right? Except I forgot that my poor friend was really claustrophobic. And she was super nervous about the water. As we are sitting wayyyyy out from shore, on the platform, in the sub, and they are starting to lower us down, I look over at her face and see that she's slightly panicked. The further they lower us down, the more she was shooting me side-eye. I just remember talking to her and telling her things like...see, it's fine... it's all good... we're ok....Truely the faces she made were the funniest ever. Once we got down and she saw the fish we were all good. But she admitted that she can't believe I talked her into doing it ;)
Hmmmm.... and now that I think about it, this is the same friend that we talked into to going on a cruise with us (her husband and young son included) about a month after she had major surgery. Telling her that it would be relaxing.... forgetting that this same friend was prone to motion sickness... I also believe that is the same trip that while on a snorkeling excursion from the ship with her husband, Jeff, and her young son, one of the other snorkel guests got flat out drunk and proceeded to flash the whole boat... young son included....
Those were the same friends that drove all night with us on a trip back from Vegas... and at 3am we convinced them to stop at the scariest Bar I have ever been to in my life because a pit stop was needed due to the copious amounts of caffeinated soft drinks being consumed while trying to stay awake for said drive.....
Ok, well we have traveled with other people too, and I'm sure that it's all been quite fun right?
I remember my 40th birthday, where I invited some of my girlfriends to join me for a weekend out of town for food and shopping. That was a lot of fun! Except for the part where I ran over one of my friends feet with my fully loaded Jeep....Oops..
There was the trip to Gatlinburg with a group of friends where we had great fun racing each other on the mini-car tracks. Until we all got kicked off because "apparently" you are supposed to "race" the cars, not play demolition derby with them....picky, picky...
There was the fun trip to Hawaii where we were joined by several different friends for two weeks of fun on the beach. We had a blast... except for the time we convinced everyone to jump off the rocks at Wiamea Bay into the water and one friend landed in the water wrong and bruised the whole underside of her legs.... or the supposedly easy hike up to the waterfall.... which turned into a mud bath due to recent rainfall-- and said rainfall didn't seem to help the waterfall.... and the time when I talked my non-swimming friend into kayaking out to an offshore island and then snorkeling around it in very rough water (hey, she didn't drown-- I held her hand and helped her)....That was however the same friend that I talked her and her son into joining Keagan and I on the shark cage dive. (Having done this with me 2 times already on previous trips, and being violently seasick, to the point of chumming, Jeff refuses to go with me). We had a great time, saw a ton of sharks... also my friends son who is prone to motion sickness may have left that trip with the same disdain for that process that Jeff has....
It's beginning to dawn on me that maybe I'm having a little more fun on the trips than my friends are. But in my defense, several of the same friends keep signing on for more trips with me... which is making me question the sanity of my friends ;) Seriously, what is wrong with you people?
But, as I sat there pondering this, I thought to myself-- hey-- those are older stories-- you have been doing much better recently. And then, another memory popped up in my head. New Years 2016. A group of us always rents a house somewhere on a beach where we can all gather and spend a few days enjoying the beach and celebrating the new year together. This group is a busy lot-- with several of them traveling for work, so it's hard to get us all together-- New Year's works for everyone. 2016 was my turn to find the rental house. And boy did I find one-- it was amazing. Beach out front, a secluded bay in back-- kayaks, ping pong table, big rooms, big kitchen, a sauna, indoor pool, indoor hot tub, beach bikes... perfect... Oh yeah, and water that smelled like sulpher.....every time we used it..... and although we were assured that it was potable and drinkable... we just couldn't..... spent a fortune purchasing and hauling bottled water into the house...
Hmmmmm...... and most recently... just last month.... I made one of my friends throw up on a bus.... in the middle of the Czech Republic...... surrounded by 70 other strangers. The morning started out with said friend waking up and not feeling great. We were all doing a river cruise down the Danube River. He said he couldn't even look at the water in the river.... made him not feel good.... but, in our great wisdom, it was decided that a good healthy breakfast before we started the day would help. So, poor friend was stuffed full of amazing waffles, and lamb (really, who can ever pass up good lamb?) and best of all they were serving Mimosa's. Orange juice is good for you right? Then, we plopped said friend onto a very hot, very full, greyhound tour bus for a two hour scenic ride through mountain ranges and beautifully curvy roads on our way to Czesky Krumlov. What could possibly go wrong? Oh, and did I mention that said friend is also prone to motion sickness? Enough said. Thank goodness for empty coffee cups....
Ok, ok... it looks like I need to apologize to everyone who I have pushed, begged, and possibly bribed into taking these crazy trips with me and following my crazy ideas. We have had some great fun along the way, right? And you still like me right? If you don't just go along with it..... I don't need to know.
But I fear, the ones who I owe the biggest apology to is my poor, dear, travel weary, adventure worn family... I usually show you all the "good" fun photos and stories... but I'll show some of the others as well.
This is Keagan after going through the 1000th roman ruin on our Europe trip in 2013. Doesn't he look thrilled?
Istanbul is a huge city! And I was determined to see as much of it as I could. Jeff and Keagan hit a wall while riding a boat down the Bosphorus..... They both took off their sunglasses and promptly fell asleep.
And doesn't my husband and son look absolutely thrilled to discover that the "Authentic Roman Meal" I signed us up for in Ephesus meant that they threw used and smelly togas on us along with fake grapevine headbands? Fun memories... I must tell you...
Keagan... yet more roman ruins... he just can't even....
Jeff-- St. Peter's Basilica.. I think at this point, according to my son... we had managed to visit 1001 amazing cathedrals... Doesn't he look like he is in shock and awe? My son said that it doesn't matter how many cathedrals I walk into, I always am in awe and I always say, "Isn't this amazing?" Guilty. Bite me.
My poor, poor, husband... who is deathly afraid of heights... and yet still I manage to get him to climb up into every tower, roof, dome I can. This is him at the top of the leaning Tower of Pisa... Can you see the reserved panic in his eyes??? He never left the wall... I know, I'm evil. Bite me.
Oh and then there is this gem... the time when on a Disney cruise I made my whole family dress up as pirates... and take photos... Not shown in this photo are Jeff's parents... who were with us... and in full pirate gear as well...
I made Keagan kiss a stingray.... this photo was taken before the enforced kiss... thus the smile....
Keagan... oh so happy to stand in front of another statue and smile yet again for another photo for mom...
I may or may not have signed my parents and in-laws up for a gazillion hour "extra"tour of the icebergs in Alaska because you know... one iceberg is so drastically different than another... oh, and it began to storm and rain... and we were stuck... on a little boat...watching ice float... for hours.... whatever... they still love me
and just because we had not yet seen enough ice and icebergs and cold in Alaska... I signed Jeff, Keagan, and I up to go on a dog-sled ride at the top of Denver Glacier... Go me!!! (actually this was really fun) and our musher was a very cute and pretty young girl, so Keagan didn't mind...
How about the time I drug Jeff and Keagan on a nice relaxing trip to Africa... where we were up at the crack of dawn to get out and see the animals....
Oh, and because South Africa is in the other hemisphere... it was in the middle of their winter... which means temps get down to below freezing overnight... thus the need for down coats...
And we didn't go to bed early because there were animals to be seen after dark as well.....and I wanted photos... and so what?
And the Range Rovers were "Open air" so as not to interfere with the viewing of said animals... which required blankets and hot water bottles in order to keep warm because the non-existant heaters can't heat up all that openness....
and one of the places we went to consisted of us sleeping in tents that were set up on up-raised platforms. Yup... tents... unheated... no electricity... no wifi...no cell service... Jeff and Keagan were thrilled with that... seriously... The water for the shower was heated with solar energy... meaning hot shower =later in the day.... but not at night... no sun... no light because no electricity...oh and this was the same place where the monkeys stole our breakfast one morning..
Same trip-- I also wanted to see Victoria Falls-- which was cool-- but required the use of the stunning-- runway model perfect--free ponchos that made everyone look like the SNL Coneheads because well.... everything was extremely wet...... big falls= big mist = lots of moisture
and last but not least-- same Africa trip is spending 4 hours on a river, fishing...catching plenty of weeds, sticks, twigs, other anonymous yuck... no fish... oh... and being chased by very angry hippos... because they are territorial... and basically wanted us off the whole river... because MINE... is all they understand...
Oh there are more stories with my two side kicks-- Jeff and Keagan-- than I have time to share.. the time our guide handed Keagan a piece of Zebra poo (and I thought Keagan was going to gag).. to taking a wrong turn thanks to our Italian guidance system in the car and driving through someone's Vineyard... to off-roading in a four person bike in Lucca...
I hope you got a laugh or a giggle out of this light hearted blog. We all need to laugh at ourselves once in a while. Laughter is good for the soul!
And by the way... I'm planning a trip... anyone brave enough to join me????
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