Almost every summer growing up we would drive from Chicago to Utah to visit my grandparents. I have the best memories of picking raspberries in their backyard for morning cereal, Grandpa J making fresh squeezed orange juice, walking around BYU campus, Grandma Jackson reading us "Keeko," the matching animal towels and wash cloths, dancing to the Peter Pan and Bambi soundtrack on their record player. I could go on and on. They were wonderful trips!
We drove these trips. All 24 hours of it. And my mom was the master car trip planner. She always had fun snacks we didn't have at other times, small surprises like Mad Libs or Pez when we hit the half way mark and her famous Herman the Worm stories. This worm always tagged along on our summer trips and had adventure after adventure with the Jackson clan. Ask her next time you see her to do her Herman voice. You'll love it!!
We had a station wagon for the first years and my mom made foam pads so one adult could fully lay out and sleep while the other drove until they switched. They liked to drive all night but I got car sick every single year when I woke up in the morning. The worst.
This trip I was 15 or 16 and we had moved on to a mini van. We were in the middle of Nowhere, USA. Plains of Nebraska or corn fields of Iowa. Can't remember.
We had gotten back in the car after lunch with my sister Genet and I in the back seat of the mini van. We had gone maybe 20 minutes and we got to laughing about something. I have no idea what it was about but we got the giggles and couldn't stop. One of those times that just got funnier the more you laughed.
In the midst of laughing I slipped forward on the car seat and fell down in the small space between the back of the front bench and seat of the back bench. But my knees got pushed up to my chest, so I got stuck folded in half between the two seats with mt knees at my chin.. Really stuck. And we just laughed harder and harder because I couldn't get out. We thought it was hilarious and couldn't stop laughing.
Well, remember we had just stopped for lunch about 20 minutes earlier. I had a full stomach. And apparently laughing so hard you could pee your pants and getting stuck in such a squished position does not lend itself well to holding down said lunch. And so amid the laughter I started to throw up. All. over. myself. And yet still I could not stop laughing. Genet was laughing so hard she could hardly get the words out, "She's throwing up! She's throwing up!"
My dad pulled to the side of the highway and Genet had to grab some part of me not covered in vomit so she could pull help un-stick me. It was beyond disgusting yet we still couldn't stop laughing. I finally made it out of the van and on to the side of the highway, covered in my lunch.
Now these were the olden days where we kept all our luggage in a hard plastic car top that wasn't too easy to get in an out of. There were locks and matching up slots and steel poles. Not an easy feat on a normal day let alone on the side of the highway. Plus we were in the middle of nowhere and having just stopped for lunch no one wanted to stop again. So that meant I had no clean clothes to put on.
On the side of the highway,Genet held up a blanket while my sweet mother helped me removed the awful clothes and I got to travel the rest of the afternoon wrapped in a blanket. Not my proudest moment. But now I got a pretty great laugh from my boys as I told of the time I puked all over myself. And in the long run, that's what really matters. Others getting a kick out of your humiliation. :)
Speaking of humiliation, I'll leave you with just one of the pictures we have of Jonah ready to lose his own lunch on the side of the highway. Poor kid.
