Wrap Up: Worst Vacation Ever

We were released from the hospital at roughly the same time. The official diagnosis: One case of heat stroke and one case of badly bruised kidneys. The remedies: Less sun for him and less fun for me. My father in law was advised to stay out of the heat and drink lots of water. I was advised to lay off the booze and stop chasing lizards. This was difficult news to take because during the testing, I was plotting my vengeance on the lizard.

The week’s events had taken their toll on us all and the wind was taken out of our collective sails. The remaining days were very, very low key. By Friday, my father in law was feeling much better, and my urine was a nice pink color, like white zinn, which while shocking was much better than the merlot from earlier in the week. We had endured bulldozers, surprise guests, heat stroke and kidney damage on top of all the struggles that go with living with a large group of people for several days. It was time for the vacation to be over, probably past time.

Amazingly the week didn’t dampen our enthusiasm for family vacations. Almost every year we load up and caravan to the same part of Florida. We’ve never stayed at the same place, but we talk about The House all the time. My friend and I reminisce about the Perfect Day that came to an abrupt end when we all ran to the hospital. In spite of several attempts we’ve never been able to recreate it. Perhaps the sun’s a bit brighter, the beer a bit colder and the water a bit blue-er just before disaster. I still remember how damn good that shrimp was before Gary showed up. We’ve endured each others personality quirks, kids, bad cooking, bad weather, crappy and/or small houses, but nothing has compared to Worst Vacation Ever. Every time we get together when vacation comes up, we talk about it. Now, several years later we can all laugh about it. No matter how bad it gets we can always fall back on, “Well….Dad still’s still conscious and Chris isn't peeing blood, so we got that going for us."