What Vacation Mishaps Have You Encountered?
Did anything good come ultimately from them?
While vacations often don’t match up to anticipation, some encounter more unexpected twists and turns than others. Sometimes the difficulties in getting there make the eventual destination that much sweeter, or the resulting anecdotes that much funnier. What difficulties have you encountered? Hurricanes? Earthquakes? Epic flooding? Luggage that never arrived? Bears in your tackle box? Worst Case of Turista EVAH?
side pocket, as we know, has encountered unexpected torrential rains in Kauai, which postponed but did not cancel his helicopter tour. He may as well have flown into the equally tropical Puerto Rico.
Vacations are all about the unexpected glimpses you get into other people's lives.... including inadvertently being there during a disaster. If we’re lucky, we get to go back home, and if we’re wise we leave with a fuller empathy for the disasters others experience. I fully expect side pocket to absorb and report on that lesson because .... that's who he is.
On my first real vacation in the 70’s we flew to Miami for a Barefoot Windjammer cuise, arriving in Florida at the same time as Hurricane David. We spent one night in the airport and the next in a Miami Hotel with ten other stranded cruisers crowded into the only two available rooms. Advantage: By the time we finally boarded our sailing ship we’d formed a close-knit group of fearless friends.
Sometimes our vacation disasters are of our own making, like the time I bought vegetables at a stall in Playa del Carmen and forgot to wash off a lime I’d dropped on the floor. I sliced it and dropped it into my rum and coke and a few hours later paid for my carelesness. That night I got sick was also the night of heavy tides that caused the sewers to back up with rotted seaweed, with the incredibly malodorous fumes seeping up through the shower stall drain. While the hotel owner could not find us another room he was exceptionally kind and brewed up his special family remedy of té para perros (dog tea) for me, which I thought must be some fabulous Mayan herbal remedy but turned out to be… chamomile.
One year in Mexico I got shingles, and because it was disseminated across three dermatomes I thought it was an exceptionally painful sun rash, so diagnosis and treatment were delayed until I got home. The worst part was when the rash peaked as we waited for our flight home in the Mazatlan airport (whose air conditioning had conveniently failed) holding a cold beer bottle to the side of my burning face. As we waited in line to board the plane and all the happy tourists were deplaning and looking forward to their time in Mazatlan a couple stared at my ravaged face and John said loudly “Don’t worry! It’s not contagious! Just don’t touch the iguanas!”
Flying is very safe, of course, but who hasn’t had the occasional white-knuckle experience of a turbulent flight? During a Southwest flight through a thunderstorm over Houston where over half the passengers were either gasping or praying aloud (one in Spanish, which somehow made the situation sound even more dire) the flight attendant interrupted our panic to make a very important announcement:
“There are three naked men walking down the middle of the street.” She paused to make sure she had our full attention. When the crying and praying momentarily creased, she went on: “Which one is Ronald McDonald?”
Thinking perhaps this was not yet our day to die we waited for the punchline, which she delivered with perfect aplomb: “The one with the sesame seed buns.”
What do you want to talk about today?
RSVPS
1. idlemoments, organizer (kosmail him to connect)
2. Irna Landrum, Daily Kos Activism Staff
3. slapshoe
4. RickNelsonmn
5. mockingjay
6. norselandc
7.
MAYBEES :
Done4nau
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