A bridge gone too far
Growing up, our family vacations consisted of always going someplace SOUTH, because my father is a Southerner.
We thought our dad was much like the Queen of England back in the early years of the world being discovered... that if we were to venture any where North, we would surely fall off the face of the planet.
At least we as a family got in the car and spent good quality time together- no matter how much of that time was much like National Lampoons Vacation.
This one year however, dad decided that we were going to tour the Rocky Mountains, which if you are 10 and 8, that is pretty cool. When we finally reached our destination, somewhere near the top of "a" mountain in the Rocky Mountains- we got out of the car and went into the gift shop and bought our tickets for the tour.
As part of our tour, we had a guided tour with caves and a self guided tour. The caves were really cool, because they had little scenes set up along the way and lighting for atmosphere... however, when we got to the point that we could do our self guided tour, my dad took over.
Everything was fine until we came upon this:
Now as kids, we dont automatically think of death when we look at landscapes and bridges!
Its only AFTER our father gets us half -way -across -and -he- scurry's -the -rest- of -the -way -over -so -he -can- bounce- and -swing -the -bridge- to -terrify -us- that we think of death.
Ohh its true. He loved seeing the look of shear terror on our little faces. As we stood there frozen with fear.. he tried to play it off as a little joke, but the damage was done.
That day was forever cemented into our memory bank- the smell of the air that day, still lays fresh in my nostrils- the look of the rocks and the creek below still run through my head- but I hold no grudge.
Ohh those family vacation's- good for the soul.
We thought our dad was much like the Queen of England back in the early years of the world being discovered... that if we were to venture any where North, we would surely fall off the face of the planet.
At least we as a family got in the car and spent good quality time together- no matter how much of that time was much like National Lampoons Vacation.
This one year however, dad decided that we were going to tour the Rocky Mountains, which if you are 10 and 8, that is pretty cool. When we finally reached our destination, somewhere near the top of "a" mountain in the Rocky Mountains- we got out of the car and went into the gift shop and bought our tickets for the tour.
As part of our tour, we had a guided tour with caves and a self guided tour. The caves were really cool, because they had little scenes set up along the way and lighting for atmosphere... however, when we got to the point that we could do our self guided tour, my dad took over.
Everything was fine until we came upon this:
Now as kids, we dont automatically think of death when we look at landscapes and bridges!
Its only AFTER our father gets us half -way -across -and -he- scurry's -the -rest- of -the -way -over -so -he -can- bounce- and -swing -the -bridge- to -terrify -us- that we think of death.
Ohh its true. He loved seeing the look of shear terror on our little faces. As we stood there frozen with fear.. he tried to play it off as a little joke, but the damage was done.
That day was forever cemented into our memory bank- the smell of the air that day, still lays fresh in my nostrils- the look of the rocks and the creek below still run through my head- but I hold no grudge.
Ohh those family vacation's- good for the soul.
posted by Peggy at 12:18 PM
1 Comments:
Wow. I'm having some deja vu here. I have a similar story, and I think it might even be the same bridge, but in my case, I remember my mother saying, Absolutely not, Tom. You do what you want, but my children are not walking anywhere near that thing.
She wasn't there the day he tied the silver snow disc to the back of the car and towed us around the ice-covered parking lot at Fort Snelling, though :-)
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