It was
the summer of 2005 so naturally my parents decided that we were going to take a
five-week trip across the United States…Before my parents began to fight,
before everything happened and when everything was awesome.
My newly born sister was only one,
and might I add had an extremely defined Mohawk of hair on her head. My brothers were six and eight, and I was nine. Even though this trip was it seems so long
ago, I remember every second. Everything
we did stuck with me, and I don’t remember too much from before this time. But, this in particular was not a vacation.
It was an adventure…
We
first rented an RV and started from New York, we went all the way to Colorado,
spending nights in RV parks. I can’t
even explain how fun it was. When we got
to Colorado we stayed with my mom’s brother and his sons. I remember I would always get scared when I
would hear the tornado warning siren that went off almost every day. We stayed here for a few days and went on a
hike on sandy territory; I don’t remember exactly what it was. I remember going to a rodeo and picking out a cowgirl shirt that I could wear. As we watched they asked for volunteers to play with a baby bull. Of course I decided to go and me and a few other children put on our boots and ran around trying to grab the flag that was attached to him. We also dug for dinosaur bones, which was
definitely one of my favorite things that we did. We would wake up early and drive to the site
where it was just our family and the man who owned the site. We dug until lunch then he would make us peanut
butter and jelly sandwiches and we’d go back to digging. The coolest part was…
…We actually found dinosaur bones.
We did
this every day when we were there. Then
we traveled back going through Montana ending in South Dakota where I got to
see four of the greatest presidents’ faces carved into the mountainside. Truly captivating how real they look. Of course there was the normal man, dressed
up as Abraham Lincoln, and me smiling from excitement that I got to meet a
president.
This
trip was just amazing. My words can’t
describe all of it, just because it was so long and otherworldly. And I just realized recently how this can
never happen again. My parents can never
be in love, we can never have this “perfect family” again. Looking back on this experience it simply
made me sad. I went over it in my head
and realized that memories can completely change us. I recalled the experiences and my old family
that I wish every day to get back, even though I know it doesn’t help anything. Even if it can never happen again I’m glad I
got to have it once. I know I will never
forget it because it was the longest trip we ever had, and we just went where
it took us, nothing too planned.
A road to be traveled once and to never be traveled again…
