What I Did Over My Summer Vacation

“Road trip!” my mom chirped as my dad pulled out of the driveway. “Everyone wave goodbye to the house! See you in three weeks!” She rolled down her window and waved to the two story white colonial that both my sister and I had grown up in. I closed my eyes, put my head on the back of my seat, and silently willed Mom to stop talking. She’d dragged us all out of bed at three thirty, no time for any human being to be up, let alone during the summer. She pegged it an early start, which was why we were the only living souls awake in the entire state of Oregon at four thirty in the morning.

It was the second day of summer, and we were taking the trip south to California to visit my aunt and uncle. They lived alone, no kids, in the house my mom had grown up in. My grandmother, who was pushing seventy-five and starting to lose her memory, stayed with them. I mean, it was technically her house. They had plenty of room, but no one to fill it. Which is why, instead of going to the pool and basking in the sun for the first week of summer, my sister Celia and I would be playing shuffleboard with my grandmother instead.

The ride was supposed to last twelve hours, and we’d be driving straight through to ‘save money’. We were taking our poor old blue minivan, and quite frankly, I didn’t think it was up to the trip. We’d be lucky to make it five miles down the road. If we didn’t make it, we could always get some breakfast and walk home and I could go back to sleep.

Not only did we make it five miles, but the damn van made it two hundred fifty miles more, and we crossed into California. Celia had fallen asleep in the seat next to me, but Mom shook her awake as we pulled into a restaurant to get breakfast.

"Welcome to Smiley's, can I get you folks something to drink?" A waiter in a black shirt with a happy face stitched in the right hand corner passed out silverware and menus. His teeth made me willing to bet he himself was on the Smiley's TV commercial.

"Coffee," I said.

Mom looked at me. "Casey, you know that can stunt your growth..."

"You got me up at three thirty. I'm will to take my chances," I replied bitterly.

Stan (which I knew by noting his name tag) came back with drinks in just a few minutes, and began hitting on my sister as he took our meal orders. He may or may not have slipped her his number as we were leaving.

Full of pancakes and bacon, we continued on through the wonderful state of California. I should know. Mom and Celia slept through it. I saw every friggin’ mile.

The goal had been to make it to our destination by dinnertime, and we made it there a half hour earlier than had been anticipated. I knew this was due to my father’s excessive speeds on the highway while Mom had been sleeping, but when she commented on the early arrival, I kept my mouth shut and just raised my eyebrows at my father who gave me the 'you-didn't-see-anything' look.

It was six twenty-two as Old Blue (who had indeed made it all six hundred seventy-five miles) pulled up the long driveway of the bright yellow house. When my grandparents moved in, before they had any kids, my grandmother had hated the house. She agreed to move in under the condition that my grandfather paint it her favorite color, and he had. Hence the banana-colored California mansion in front of me.

I slid open the door and hopped out, breathing in gasps of air. The back seats of the van didn’t have windows that opened – just those stupid tinted ones. My parents and Celia all got out too and we started making our way up the walk. We didn’t actually get more than five steps when we saw my grandmother pop out from behind bushes in front of the house. She was wearing a floral skirt and a floral shirt, neither of which matched the other, and gardening gloves. She came over to my mother, giving her a hug, and then proceeded to give me one too.

“Hello, Celia dear, how are you, sweetie?” she asked me, patting my back a few more times than were necessary.

Celia stepped out from behind me. “I’m Celia, Gram. This is Casey.”

Gram grabbed Celia in a hug of her own. “Of course you are, dear, of course you are.” By this time, my Uncle Pat and Aunt Fran were among us, having heard the greetings from inside the house, I assumed.

When the greetings were complete, we all dragged our things in from the van. Because the house was so large with so few occupants, there were four spare bedrooms. Two were master bedrooms, one of which my parents took, and the other two were regular bedrooms.

Gram had, as previously mentioned, had a thing for colors, and each of the bedrooms had a different color scheme. She stayed in the yellow one (of course) at the end of the hall. Celia got the pink one (in which I refused to stay, too much pink could be deadly), and I rolled my suitcase into the green one. The walls were actually white, but everything else (bed spread, wall paper, curtains, lampshade) was green. The room was poorly lit, but I opened the curtains to let the summer evening light in. It was only seven, and it was still light out. My room looked out onto the side yard, which, quite frankly, yielded very little excitement and nothing worth mentioning.

Aunt Fran was calling me for dinner, so I left the window and went downstairs to the dining room. I always wondered whether they ate in there when it was just the three of them. Aunt Fran was carrying in food from the kitchen and setting it on potholders she had placed on the table. It all smelled delicious and I pulled out a chair and sat down next to Celia.

“So Celia, Washington State in the fall?” Uncle Pat asked. Celia was leaving for college in the fall and I was stuck at home. For two more years.

“Yeah.”

“What are you studying?” he asked.

“Ummm… I dunno yet.” I’d listened to this conversation multiple times with multiple people. Where are you going to school? What do you want to study? What do you want to do afterward? Et ceterta, et cetera, et cetera. This one was no exception.

I finished my meal quickly, and then asked to be excused. “Before dessert?” Mom asked. I nodded.

“I’m really tired from… you know… riding all day…” Dad nodded and told me to clear my place before I went upstairs. I did and took the stairs two at a time, diving onto my bed in the green room. Three more weeks of family dinners. Three more weeks of college talk. Three more weeks of complete boredom.