In today’s episode of Adventures in Vacationland, our intrepid WRITERS and their companions the PARENTS decide to take an easy 2.7 mile hike around a lake, on a flat, well traveled, obsessively well-marked trail, visible to a busy road at nearly all times.
What could possibly go wrong?
SCENE: Planning and packing
ME: Do we need lunch?
PARENTS: It’s noon, we just finished breakfast, we’ll be back by mid-afternoon, we don’t need any lunch!
ME: I’ll just bring these few things.
DAD: It’s raining, we should bring rain gear.
EVERYONE: (packs rain gear)
SCENE: At the trailhead
EVERYONE: (studying map) Clockwise? Counter clockwise? I think it’s this way.
ME: Do we need a parking pass?
(after more studying and contemplation)
EVERYONE: Hmm, yes, good call.
(much following of esoteric instructions, including small sacrifices to several minor gods)
DAD: Okay, there’s my ten dollars, I think we’re legal to park here. Anyway it’s your car, if anything goes wrong it’ll be on your head!
ME: Thanks.
SCENE: A few miles down the trail
STEPMOM: Oh look, there’s a falls off on this spur trail! Let’s go there!
EVERYONE: Sure! We’re hardly even drenched yet!
LITTLE DOG: Really? And we weren’t staying home why exactly?
SCENE: The falls
EVERYONE: Ooh pretty.
ME: Anyone want some cheese?
EVERYONE: OM NOM NOM
LITTLE DOG: And we aren’t curled up dry at home why exactly? Because I am very wet and muddy now, being three inches from the ground as I am. And I’ve had to take seventeen steps for each two of yours. Just saying.
SCENE: Back where the trail crosses the road, after the falls
DAD: No, really, my leg is fine, it’s hardly even hurting at all, I’d love to backtrack the rest of the way back.
STEPMOM: Maybe there’s a shortcut, stay here, I’ll find it.
(time passes)
LITTLE DOG: WHERE IS MY MOMMY I GO FIND HER NOW BYE
ME, MARK, and DAD: Where did the dog go??? Where is Stepmom?
(short time passes)
DAD: We must go find dog.
MARK and ME: Okay.
(down the trail a ways, everyone calling for Stepmom and Little Dog, to no response)
DAD: Wow, where is she? Where is Little Dog?
MARK and ME: Wow, no clue.
SCENE: After quite a bit more of that, including walking most all the way back down the original trail, Intrepids and Dad arrive at a ranger station
MARK: Lo, Ranger Man, we have lost our companions, well nigh one hour ago, can you help us?
RANGER MAN: Yea verily, I worry, in all this rain, I shall help you.
(much discussion and map consultation)
RANGER MAN: Therefore, you three drenched and exhausted people should walk in that completely opposite and wrong direction, and I shall drive off in my dry and warm truck towards your car, where I shall certainly find your companions. Bye now!
DAD, MARK, and ME: Um, okay.
(a few minutes later)
DAD, MARK, and ME: Seriously? No. How about we walk towards where the car is parked, which is obvious based on where the lake is, which we can see even in this drenching rain?
(we do so)
DAD, MARK, and ME: Wow it’s wet out here now.
ME: It’s been an hour since she walked off. I sure hope everything’s okay.
DAD: Oh I don’t even want to think about it.
RANGER MAN (driving back by in his warm dry truck): I found your people! They’re at the birthday party by your car! Little Dog is cold!
DAD, MARK, and ME: Oh thank god.
SCENE: Back at the car
STEPMOM: Where have you been? I went back and you weren’t there!
LITTLE DOG: Tell me again WHY we are out here and not curled up in our warm cabin???
DAD, MARK, and ME: Little Dog ran off! We couldn’t find you! He might have been carried off by a bald eagle! We’re drenched to the skin!
EVERYONE: Wait, let’s open up the car and continue the discussion out of the rain.
SCENE: Deleted to protect the participants
SCENE: Dinner at Ship’s Bay Inn
EVERYONE: All’s well that ends well!
Tune in again tomorrow for another exciting episode, wherein our brave travelers try to find a place to have Father’s Day brunch, with no reservations!