Jeff Wysaski
Probably my favorite vacation of all time would have to be the time my dad took me camping, just me and him. I can’t recall another time where I had more fun, adventure and gun fights in my entire lifetime!
What’s funny is that the trip wasn’t even planned at all. One day, my dad just got a wild hair up his butt to go on a trip. Dad was spontaneous like that, but I think part of what had to do with it, was all the policemen he saw coming up our walkway right before we left.
I’m not sure, but I think my old pa saw all those guns in the hands of those policemen, and it made him think of going hunting, which made him think of the woods. Whatever the case, we grabbed our camping gear and hopped in that brand-new truck he had found the day before and we headed to the woods to go camping (or as he put it, “on the lamb”).
Which was fine by me, because I didn’t feel like going to school anyways that day.
I never realized it before, but my dad was a real big environmentalist. As soon as we got there, he was real concerned about leaving the wilderness in the same condition as when we found it. Which is why I guess we covered the truck in a bunch of leaves and stuff and then erased the tire tracks that led up to the road.
After we hiked for a couple hours, it was time to pitch the tent. Dad must have thought it was a good chance to teach me about the importance of hard work or something, because I put the tent together myself while he supervised and counted all the money he’d packed in his suitcase.
Later, we went canoing and dad got real sore at me when he caught me texting with my cell phone. He started yelling about radio towers and triangulation and stuff and how this was a “no technology” trip. At first I was mad – I mean, no cell phones? But then I realized he just wanted to live off the land like real mountain men. Which is why I wasn’t too upset when he took the battery out of the phone and threw both pieces into opposite sides of the lake.
At night, dad would make a campfire and we’d eat cans of beans while he told ghost stories. This was great, because dad had a really good imagination and always told ghost stories I’d never heard before. Like the one about the ghost bank robber who haunted 27 different branches of First National Bank without ever getting caught by the Ghostbusters even once.
About the fifth night into our vacation, we heard a bunch of dogs barking, and dad said it was time to go camping somewhere else. So we jumped up and decided to go for a nice night jog so we could find a new campsite as soon as possible.
Unfortunately, we never got to find a second campsite, because my dad ran into one of his coworkers along this little dirt road and he got called back into work. So they dropped me off back at home and dad’s friend took him back to the office.
They must be keeping dad real busy at work, I guess, because he hasn’t been home since. That’s okay, though, because mom takes me to visit him at work all the time. I’m not sure what he does, but it must be real important – there’s lots of security and bars on the doors to make sure no one can break in and steal all dad’s important business stuff.
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