“More vacation-from-hell stories from readers” plus 1 more |
| More vacation-from-hell stories from readers Posted: 03 Sep 2010 09:56 AM PDT A sick world after all Judy Ostrom, Overland Park: Our bad vacation was last summer. We planned a week at Universal Studios with a side trip to Disney's Magic Kingdom. We arrived on Sunday, and things were great. Then on Monday our 14-year-old daughter started feeling bad, with chills, cough and fever, and we figured we'd tag team our two kids. I'd stay with our daughter at the hotel; my husband and son would go out on Tuesday. By Thursday, my husband, our 12-year-old son and I all had symptoms: vomiting, terrible cough, you name it — we all had it within a 12-hour period. Not knowing what this monster was, we called in a doctor. He confirmed we all had H1N1. My husband and I were so weak all we could do was lie on the bed and let the kids have free reign rein of the TV. I saw enough "iCarly" reruns to last a lifetime. By then, our daugher daughter was over her illness and climbing the walls wanting out of that hotel room. This was also a very expensive vacation. Not only did it cost a fortune for the doctor to come to the hotel room, we also had bills for medicine. (I now know just how expensive Tamiflu can be when your insurance doesn't cover it.) Our credit card company froze our card on Saturday because we had so many suspicious charges. We finally decided to go to the Magic Kingdom. We figured, why not? It was 90 degrees outside, but I had chills so I wore a sweater. My son left his lunch in a few trash cans in front of Cinderella's castle. And my husband refused to ride Big Thunder Mountain Railroad because his stomach was nauseous. We can laugh now, but none of us want wants to see Mickey Mouse for a while. So not OK Sara Niemann, Bonner Springs: After reading a glowing description of Guthrie, Okla., in a magazine, my daughter and I decided to spend five days there one summer. Our first clue that we'd made a mistake was when the desk clerk at the beautifully restored historic bank building, now a B&B, asked us how long we'd be staying. "Five days," I said. Her response was: "Why?" The article had described numerous activities, including bike rentals, horseback riding, antiquing, fine dining — none of which panned out. The bike rental place closed at 5 p.m., which meant that riding in the "cool" of the evening (when the temperature dropped below 100) was impossible. The horse stables, several miles down a red dust road, were closed when we arrived, but the sign stated that rides were available for groups only. The antique shops could better be described as somewhere between flea markets and "loving hands" craft shops. As for the "fine dining," I guess it's all relative, but we were from the Kansas City area and used to pretty good food. In an attempt to salvage what we could from our time in Oklahoma, we asked for directions to Oklahoma City and went shopping. Lake of nonstop rain Casey Rausch, Kansas City: My worst vacation was our last camping trip, to Lake of Three Fires in Iowa. Due to a botched transmission fluid change, the fluid was leaking badly from our car. The repair shops there would have had to pull the transmission and send it to Kansas City to be fixed, which would have taken a week and stranded us. So we bought all the transmission fluid we could find in the closest town and poured it in every few miles. It rained every day. The fish weren't biting, we couldn't play golf and we couldn't swim. So we stayed in the tent and played cards — for hours. Because we'd brought the wrong kind of propane, we couldn't use our lantern. So we just had to go to sleep at dark. We couldn't get a fire going in the rain and couldn't cook on the propane stove with no fuel. No local store had the right kind of propane, and we were afraid to drive farther because of the leaking transmission. The highlight of the trip was going to the local country club and having a steak dinner every night. (Hell)owstone Sally Ryan, Kansas City: Our worst vacation was in 1988. Should we have had a premonition when I totaled the car three days before we left? We quickly bought a new car, and my husband and 4-year-old son started the long — slower than usual because of the new car — drive to Montana. west. With a 1-year-old daughter and not as much vacation, I had planned to fly out later anyway. We arrived safely and had started to relax when the baby suddenly developed a high fever. A trip to the emergency room revealed pneumonia. Not to be deterred from seeing some scenery, we got in the car and made our way to Yellowstone — which was on fire. We spotted a group of elk and stopped to get out and take pictures; I was looking at the wildlife and not looking where I was going, and turned my ankle so badly I couldn't walk. A trip to emergency services in the park showed a bad sprain, so I was on crutches for the rest of the trip. And everyone in the family, including the dog, came down with stomach flu … oh, wait, that was the next time we visited my mother-in-law. World's deadliest bakery Mario Ramos, Olathe: Our vacation from hell was the time in 2006 my family decided to go to Juarez, Mexico, to make a video of Mexican bakeries for the Spanish class I taught at Westport High School. After traveling down some of Mexico's most dangerous streets, we found our bakery. Entering the bakery, we were followed in by police with machine guns. I finally was asked to leave at gunpoint. I did, but I did at least get to film the bakery and its pastries. We went to the border, where we waited one hour to cross back into the U.S.A. It seemed like one day. I was happy to be in El Paso, Texas. I was also glad we were going back to Kansas! Juarez was recently ranked the world's deadliest city in a CNN report. Wow, I am glad we got back to the land of Oz without any incidents. From now on I will videotape my friends' Mexican bakery in Topeka. Mice eat free Tammy Ferguson, Independence: In July 1991, the Boilermakers gang (where I worked for 20 years) took our annual canoe trip. There were around 20 of us, so we needed quite a few rooms. Michele, the organizer, found this "new place" in southern Missouri. Another friend was going to be coming back that way from a trip and said she would check out the motel. She did, and we booked it. Everyone got there Friday night. The rooms were really old and not great, but it was late and we were there. I had bought a bag of M&M's and put it in my open purse. In the middle of the night, my husband, Kirby, heard a noise and got up to investigate. There was a mouse in my purse eating my M&M's. Kirby chased it around with his shoe and then it was gone, probably hiding out in our room somewhere. I basically slept through the whole thing, but of course I was so grossed out. To make matters worse, the mouse pooped and peed in my purse while enjoying my M&M's. All but the pertinent stuff had to be thrown away, including the purse. Saturday we had a nice float on the river and came back to the motel, hot and sweaty, to shower and get ready for dinner. When a group of the girls in a "suite" (lots of beds in a big crummy room) opened their door, ants were everywhere, trails of them all over their stuff. Michele ran to the convenience store and bought a can of bug spray. In the meantime, when I went to take a shower, little rocks came out of the shower head as well as orange rusty water that dribbled out. We met for dinner at the restaurant attached to the motel. They had lost their help that day, so one or two people were running the restaurant, cooking food, doing dishes. The owner said they didn't have much chicken, so everybody could have just one piece (and this was a buffet). Finally, after waiting for plates to get washed, we got in line for our one piece of chicken, and a roach crawled up the wall behind the food. Needless to say, I was done. More crackers. We finally gave up — some ate and some didn't, yet the owner still charged us full price for the lovely buffet. So, in Boilermaker tradition we went back to the motel to talk and laugh about our day. As soon as the sun went down, the town crazies came out. They came to the "lounge" next door, and many were already three sheets to the wind, and it got worse the later it got. We all finally went to our rooms, mainly out of fear. I was so tired at the end of that day, yet knowing the mouse was still at large made it very hard to sleep. Exhaustion won, and we made it through the night only to find out two of the ladies slept in their cars because their room was so horrible they couldn't take it a second night. They got the heck out of there as soon as the sun came up, and we followed soon after. Breaking news from the Missouri River Rolland Love, Overland Park: While fishing on the Missouri River under the Broadway Bridge in downtown Kansas City, my outboard motor broke down. Since I had launched the boat upstream a couple of miles and there were no access ramps in the area at the time, I had to float downriver without power for 12 miles to La Benite Park in Sugar Creek, which was the closest takeout. There was not a cloud in the sky to shield me from the baking 100-degree heat. The swift, churning muddy water rocked the boat back and forth constantly. Someone standing on the I-435 bridge saw me floating at a snail's pace as a nearby tugboat pushing a dozen barges upstream created a six-foot wake that filled my boat half full of water. The observer called a radio station, which sent up a news helicopter to track me the rest of the way, reporting my progress back to the listeners. Except for the barge captain, my closest companions during the long, slow trip was a gray snapping turtle the size of a tire that floated past on a log, and a couple of snakes riding on what looked like a wooden chicken coop. That day of vacation happened 15 years ago, and the thing I remember most was a flock of buzzards soaring high above, stalking me the entire way. Bad, bad Fluffy! Joy Young, Kansas City: Twenty-four years ago my husband and I planned a three-day fishing trip to Bennett Springs with our sons, 7 and 10. Since I don't care for fishing I was taking a book to read. I enjoy cooking, so I was planning each of our meals and what to take. We left on a Friday morning with a new tent, sleeping bags and all the stuff for cooking and fishing in our minivan, plus our dog, Fluffy, who was about 3 years old. He was a mutt that the farmer had assured us was a cockapoo. The vet later told us that he was a big brown dog! He had lots of Lab in him — he didn't look like a Fluffy! Everything was grand. They caught fish, I read and cooked. My husband and the boys wanted to stay an extra day. So we stayed, but I had no more food left for the night meal, so we cleaned up and went to the lodge for dinner. They had a buffet of all fried foods. When the older boy had filled up his plate for the third time but didn't eat everything, we talked about how this was wrong. The younger son listened and ate everything on his plate even though he was stuffed! That night in the tent he awoke and said, "I am going to throw up!" I immediately unzipped the tent, and he threw up out by a tree. Whew, I thought, that was close. Meanwhile, Fluffy was tied up to another tree and rolled in the throw-up in the middle of the night. Early morning we awoke to this awful smell. My husband took the dog to the shower to clean him off. The boys and I packed the minivan while he was gone. Then my husband came back and unpacked the van because it was not packed correctly! I noticed a single man next to us at his campsite praying — I think he was thanking the Lord for not having a family or a dog! We traveled to Sedalia with a wet dog and no one speaking. We stopped at a McDonald's for breakfast and tied Fluffy to a tree in the shade away from everyone. We now tell this story with tears in our eyes from laughing so hard — but it wasn't funny then! The forecast: Torrential downpours Lou Anne Chipman, Overland Park: I have no idea what we were thinking. Why would you fly from Connecticut to Hawaii in one day? Did we not realize how long it would take? And did we not realize we were flying to the wettest place on earth? We were living in Hartford, Conn. We were to fly from Connecticut to San Francisco to Hawaii, spend 10 days sightseeing and swimming, and two days camping. But unfortunately it didn't turn out quite as we planned. I only last about five hours confined in any mode of transportation, whether it's a car, airplane, train, whatever. So I mentally prepared myself for several hours in the air. I guess our first indication this wasn't going to go as planned was finding out there was only one first-class seat available to San Francisco. We had booked two, knowing how long the flight is, but somehow the airline came up short so we had to split up. My 6-foot, 2-inch husband wanted me to sit in first class, so he sat back in coach. After traveling for several hours, a flight attendant let us know we would be stopping in Salt Lake City because we were running low on fuel. What? They didn't have enough fuel? OK, so let's fill 'er up and get back in the skies. This made us late getting into San Francisco, so we raced to our gate only to find out they had just closed the door and we couldn't get on our plane. There was one more flight out that evening. We grabbed whatever seats we could. Once again we had to split up, and once again my husband insisted I go to first class. Twenty-four hours after leaving Connecticut, we arrived at our condo in Hawaii. Of course by this time our sleep was totally messed up. We attempted to follow the experts' advice and stay on Hawaii time. This meant we were miserable all day and wide awake at night. Because we weren't getting any sleep I felt like I had the flu, but a doctor on the island assured me it was just jet lag and to hang in there. We decided to go ahead with our plans, but as each day dawned it rained harder and harder. I've never seen torrential downpours like we experienced! We were supposed to backpack and camp out two nights, but because of the rain we couldn't go into the forest. We got tired of sitting in our condo and watching the rain so we took a drive and had a flat tire, which had to be changed in the pouring rain. When we finally got back to our room, we decided to get dressed up and treat ourselves to a nice dinner. As we were eating we felt water dripping on our heads. The restaurant roof starting leaking like a sieve! The wait staff quickly packaged our food and sent us on our way. We hung in there for a few more days, and the rain stopped long enough for us to take a helicopter flight over the island. But as soon as we landed, you guessed it — it starting pouring again and we got soaked running to our car. That was the last straw. We left two days early, treated ourselves to a five-star hotel in San Francisco, slept for what seemed like two days and then enjoyed our favorite city — the City by the Bay. Heart-healthy, unless it kills you Jim Marfield, Platte City: With the intention of combining a trip to the Grand Canyon with stops in Kansas, New Mexico and Colorado, along with going to my wife's family reunion, we escaped the heat and humidity in Missouri and headed west. I fulfilled an item on my bucket list by staying at the El Tovar lodge on the south rim of the Grand Canyon. The problem was that the only room available was on the third floor, and there was no elevator. Hiking up and down three flights of stairs with all of our luggage at an altitude of 6,000 feet makes your heart beat a little faster. Then it was on to Mesa Verde, Colo., to see the Anasazi ruins that were built in caves along the cliffs of a mountain. They were at an altitude of 10,000 feet. You are required to hike down 1,000 feet of rough terrain, take your photos, oooh and ahhh, then hike back up the same 1,000 feet. Our hearts were really taking a pounding after this. Next it was on to the long-awaited family reunion held every three years in various places. The Snow Mountain Ranch outside of Winter Park, Colo., was the location this year. It is at an altitude of 10,000 feet. After arriving, I was really tired, so I cut short the hellos and went to bed at 7 p.m. After breakfast the next morning, I again went to bed exhausted. My wife was also very tired, and we slept all day. That night I was ready to call 911 as I could not breathe well, and my heart was pounding like a bass drum. The next morning we could not manage to walk to the restaurant for breakfast, and decided that we needed to find relief. My sister-in-law is a nurse, who informed us that we both had altitude sickness and needed to drink plenty of liquids and go to lower altitudes to cure our ills. We left a day early and didn't have time for the usual gab-fest with everyone, I had to miss the reunion golf tournament, and I had to do all the driving back to Kansas City because my wife was now in worse shape than I. (I made it as far as Goodland, Kan., before I needed another nap.) We will have to wait another three years to see the family and catch up on all the gossip. As a site for the next reunion, I suggest New Orleans, where we would be below sea level. Who needs flushing toilets? Margot and George Matteson, Overland Park: Good friends of 40 years invited my husband and me to their summer hideaway home in Maine. We flew to Portland and rented a car for a two-hour drive, partly on dirt roads, to a cabin in the deep woods. On the first day we had no water, due to a break in a pump. (No showers, brushing teeth or flushing the toilet etc.) On the second day, we had no electricity and again no showers, brushing teeth, flushing toilets etc. The electricity outage was due to a tree that fell during a storm. Days three and four we had tremendous storms and constant rain. Our clothes even felt damp. The highlight was getting up at 7 a.m. on day two to attend the grand opening of a grocery store. (The only grocery store.) We are still good friends with the couple who invited us, and we have had some good laughs about the trip, but we were thrilled to be home! The puke boat Sharon George, Kansas City: OMG! What an opportunity! My husband asked what I wanted to do right after my retirement from teaching, and since shouting from the highest mountain was out of the question (too cold, can't climb) I told him a cruise on the Mediterranean Sea with stops in five countries would be just peachy. I got my dream vacation. I could go on and on about the lovely sights and incredible architecture, but let me tell you about the ship. We should have known when we prepared to board in Barcelona, Spain, that something was wrong when we were stopped and told to go visit the city while the crew "disinfected." We were not stupid; "disinfect" sounded pretty serious to us. But what's a traveler to do when too many dollars had already been spent on airfare and even more would have to be ponied up to change them AND try to cancel the prepaid cruise. We would just take our chances. We gambled and for 10 days we won. It was wonderful. But the last two days were bad, really bad. So bad, in fact, that when anyone asked about our trip those last two days became the focus. First, my husband, Roy, got deathly ill. Since I noticed he didn't need me while he puked and groaned I wandered the streets of Dubrovnik, Croatia, without my best friend. Then (you already know) I got sicker than a dog. Couldn't raise my head off the pillow to do anything except join him in a puke and groan medley. Next the two of us took turns sitting on the stool. We were far too sick to disembark at Venice, Italy. I mean, really, who is ever too sick to see Venice? (Can you see my hand raised?) By the way, the cruise line refused to even consider any form of compensation. Where are the horses? Anna Maynard, Lee's Summit: At last, a dream come true. My husband and I are on our way to the Kentucky Derby. A young man announces he is the substitute motor coach tour guide. He takes the seat behind the driver. The driver points out places of interest along the way. At our destination, some miles before Lexington, the tour guide checks us into a motel in Ohio right on the Ohio River. I open the drapes to view a brick wall two feet from the window. After negotiating at the check-in desk, we find a cabin-like duplex four blocks away with river view. Next morning we scurry back to the main motel for breakfast provided. No rolls left and orange juice still in a somewhat frozen state. We board the motor coach for Churchill Downs. Traffic is heavy. The towers of Churchhill Downs, which look kind of shabby, come into view, and we park at a place that seems quite a distance from the racetrack. Here the tour guide hands out tickets as we exit, and with an outreached arm points in the direction of our reserved seats. We trudge on amongst the crowd, ask questions as we pass through gate after gate. Finally we are directed from under the grandstand out into the hot sun to rows of steel bleachers with no incline. Hot and somewhat exhausted I sit a moment on a heated bleacher. I can't see the track — people are lined up standing at the fence. My thoughts churn. (My dream? I have come all this way for this? My intention is not to place bets on races. I came to be in a grandstand to see impressive Churchill Downs' grounds, towers, flowers, ladies' hats and mostly beautiful horses.) Preliminary races begin. Because of the announcement over the loudspeaker I know what is taking place as the racing horses are rounding the track. From where I sit, I catch a flash, a second's view of the race as the horses pass the aisle-sized opening of fence between the bleachers and track. Thinking it has got to be better than this, my husband and I leave our reserved area and wander in the crowd where we can view the paddock activities. We stand right by the fence, where each jockey rides under the grandstand to enter the racetrack. And for the rest of our time at Churchill Downs we watch the Kentucky Derby on the huge screen above the paddocks. The afternoon of preliminary races is over. I place bets at random on four horses running the Derby, and on the big screen behind the grandstand I watch Thunder Gulch cross the finish line. Just by chance I picked the winner! We had purchased tickets to the Oakridge Boys Show at the motel complex, and our transportation got us back in time to see the last half of the show after we had to skip dinner. Next day our bus broke down on a side trip to the Audubon Society Park, and we sat a few hours in a bus with no air conditioning and no water. When we arrived home, we saw recorded on the VCR all the things we did not see in Lexington: The Kentucky Derby race, the grandstand, the starting gates, the track, the horses, the finish, the winner's circle, winnning trophies, the jockeys, the flowers and ladies' hats. My dream come true? St. Louis blues Sheila E. Bright, Kingsville, Mo.: One November my husband and I went to St. Louis to see the Arch, the zoo and the stadium where the Cardinals played baseball. After a couple of hours I noticed we were low on fuel. My husband was convinced we could make it to the next town, and the next. I waited patiently as he hitched a ride to that elusive next town for gas. Once in St. Louis, I took pictures of the Arch with my Swinger camera and laid them on the dash. Our next quest was the zoo. We discovered that winter was not the best of times for that. The gates to the baseball stadium were locked. It was around 8 p.m. when we decided to find a hotel. After we crossed a bridge, we realized we were in Illinois. I insisted we find a place to eat before going back. As we searched we spotted a drive-in movie. A movie and eats sounded like the right thing to do. We both fell asleep and were awakened by an attendant. We headed back to Missouri and once again got lost. We were both so tired we decided to stop at the first place we found. I awoke later that night to a roach crawling across my arm. On the trip home at 3:30 in the morning, I rolled down the window. The pictures of the Arch flew out. Finally we came to a really nice motel. We slept the next day until almost noon. We arrived home only to find our home had been broken into. We decided not to go anywhere else that year. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php |
| Hurricane Earl passes quietly, so far Posted: 04 Sep 2010 02:29 AM PDT
VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (AP) — For eight friends sending off the summer with a vacation on North Carolina's Outer Banks, Hurricane Earl was bittersweet — both the storm and the drink concoction named after the squall that they sipped after evacuating to the Virginia Beach Oceanfront. For days, the New Jersey 20-somethings watched as Earl wobbled between menace and near miss. They planned a hurricane party. They gathered supplies. But on Thursday as those in neighboring rentals homes in Corolla packed up and headed inland, they were ordered to do the same. Like many in this resort town, the group anxiously awaited the storm's arrival overnight to see what kind of punch Earl would pack. By early Friday — hours after Earl was downgraded to a Category 2 storm — strong winds, light rain and sparse crowds on a usually busy night along the strip were the only signs something was swirling out at sea. "We left, but we want to see some type of action," said Amanda Guthrie, 22, as she sipped a neon green "Hurricane Earl" at the Lunasea bar with her friends from Flemington, N.J. "Bring it, Earl," echoed April Coughlin, 21. Virginia's coast was spared from the powerful winds and driving rains Earl dumped on the Outer Banks. "We dodged the bullet on this one," said Wayne Albright, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Wakefield. Earl's track kept the center of the storm out at sea. Earl was expected to move out of southeastern Virginia later Friday. Until it moved on, Albright said the area would see steady winds with gusts of up to 45 mph and up to an inch of rain. Minor flooding was possible as high tide approached later in the day, he said. Electric utility Dominion reported scattered outages in the Hampton Roads area. Emergency officials gathered at a command center to monitor the storm hadn't had a single call for service, said Virginia Beach Fire Department Battalion Chief Tim Riley. "We're still waiting for that northeasterly turn, and then we can breathe more of a sigh of relief," Riley said. "We've got all eyes on the storm right now." It also was a quiet night for National Guard troops activated as a precaution. About 200 guardsmen were sent to the area after Gov. Bob McDonnell declared a state of emergency earlier this week in advance of the storm. They had not received any calls for help by early Friday morning. Along the strip, small crowds gathered outside bars and clubs, but not nearly as many as would be expected for the kickoff to Labor Day weekend. At Deja Blu, a handful of people sat at the bar as a jazz band played on stage. The club usually would be packed on a Thursday night, but the threat of Earl kept most away, said Aykine Hicks, who owns the bar with her husband. "Everybody is taking precautions," Hicks said. "They're afraid to come out because they don't know what to expect." Along the shore, couples walked hand in hand early Friday, and some stood at the edge of the surf and snapped pictures of the whitecapped waves. Eddie Garoppo and Yvonne Boyce live in Virginia Beach and came out to check on the storm. The scant crowds surprised Boyce, a longtime resident who gave birth to her daughter as Hurricane Isabel blew through in 2003. "It's Labor Day weekend. It shouldn't be this dead," she said. "Not here, not now." Garoppo, a merchant mariner, said he understands why people would want to stay away. A shimmy to the west could mean the difference between a glancing blow and a full on punch, he said. "I'm no meteorologist, but I know things can happen," Garoppo said. "Mother Nature is unpredictable." By Friday afternoon, skies were expected to be blue again as the city gears up for a busy weekend. More than 20,000 runners were headed to the area for a half-marathon scheduled for Sunday. Friday night kicks off a weekend music festival featuring the Village People, Pat Benatar, REO Speedwagon and other '80s acts. The group from New Jersey planned to spend Friday on the beach before following Earl up the coast toward home. But in the early morning hours, they looked out over the waves and compared the Category 4 storm that chased them from their vacation early Thursday to its anticlimactic pass through Virginia. Around 2:30 a.m. the first drops of rain started coming down. "This is Earl," said Meredith Dudley, 21, throwing her arms open wide against the wind. "Great to see you." The National Weather Service forecast for Montgomery and Bucks counties: Today: A slight chance of showers. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 85. Northeast wind between 5 and 7 mph. Chance of precipitation is 20%. Tonight: Mostly cloudy, with a low around 59. Northwest wind between 5 and 11 mph. Saturday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 76. West wind between 9 and 17 mph. Saturday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 50. West wind between 3 and 9 mph. Sunday: Sunny, with a high near 77. West wind between 5 and 10 mph. Sunday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 51. Labor Day: Sunny, with a high near 81.
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