last family vacation

The main players used to be a gold, Silhouette van, a travel-size game of Connect Four sans 3-5 red or black chips every time we met a pothole, and my mom crying because the hotel room smelled like cigarettes/her Aunt Phyllis' house/swimming pool and we were too close to the raucous ice machine/parking lot/lobby. But we were going to Yellowstone/Gettysburg/Vancouver/Uncle Terry's. And dad had a whole week off and a cooler packed with Juicy-Juice and Duos (those cups of jello + yogurt purchased in tens at Super One). So it was vacation.

We went on for years like that. Hauling across the country, smelling geysers, downing juice boxes, taking blurry pictures of buffalo and mountains. At one point, probably on a stretch in Saskatchewan, my mom threw a whole ham sandwich at my dad. The whole thing. Smears of mayo, cheese and slimy disc of lunchmeat. All of it. None of us remember why, but all of us remember how things suddenly got very serious in that van and how dad got out and sat on the bumper for a full half hour afterwards.

It went on for years like that.

At some unnameable age, though, it all stops. Summer vacation completely disappears. We don't look at maps to National Parks. A week off isn't so easily taken as it was when you were at Dairy Queen. Keith or Gina aren't around to take your shifts and make Buster Bars just as well as you could. Nowadays, people are talking marriage and the van won't hold them all. Plus, the van got traded for something more practical. Something that doesn't need space for carseats.

What happens to family vacations then? Do they get multiplied the way a batch of rye dough gets turned into clovered, little potluck buns? Will our families throw sandwiches and demand you play Wee Sing America? Will we keep stealing each other's pillows, not keeping our hands to ourselves, but poking our neighbors instead and suffering from bloodshot eyes, filmed with hotel pool chlorine?