Family Vacations and other secrets revealed....

The summer vacation to the Black Hills of South Dakota was the last "pile in the car drive someplace new" trip we took as a family. Mom, Dad and three kids, traveled in '60s style in a station wagon with the territory of who sat where as regimented as a country church. Dad drove, I sat up front (got car sick anywhere else), Mom took up the middle seat with cooler and reading material (prepared to dispensed food and justice) and the two youngest, Mary Jane and Mark, who were continually warring, were in the back of the station wagon on a pallet of blankets. (This was before the seat belt law.) We had gotten an early morning start on the second day of our trip and when we needed to take a break we pulled off the South Dakota highway into a road-side attraction touting reptiles (translate snakes) of all kinds, and a gift shop that went on forever. Bathroom breaks finished we gathered back in the car and took off, Dad anxious to get to our goal of Mt. Rushmore. About 25 minutes down the road Mom started to make and pass around sandwiches, not really looking, just calling out the roll as she handed them out. When she go to Mary Jane there was no answer. "Mark, wake your sister up" ordered Mom. "She's not here," replied the 8 years old, who was definitely enjoying having the entire pallet. Nothing was said, but my Dad screeched on the brakes and spun the station wagon around better than any stunt car driver. Pavement had taken us 25 minutes to drive was eaten up in 15 - and in total silence. We barely slowed down in the parking lot of the road side snake museum and gift shop as Mom jumped out of the car. She made it in and out of the gift shop, with Mary Jane in tow, in barely under two minutes. Leaving one of your children behind was such a huge shock for Mom and Dad that it was never talked about for the rest of the trip - and beyond.

Now skip forward in years - let's say 15 years. My sister and I are roommates - in Los Angeles. One evening over drinks with friends we were all talking about vacation plans and laughing about tales of family vacations remembered. I told the story of Mary Jane being left at the snake museum in South Dakota. I realized that my sister had the strangest look on her face. "I never knew you guys left me," she said when I finished. "I just thought that Mom and Dad gave us a really long time to look in the gift shop. If I had known that you guys had left me I could really have put that to use!"

Have some great family vacation stories?
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