Vacation, Time To Get Away

We stayed at Santa Cruz Ranch RV park this weekend. The RV park is in Scotts Valley, five miles away from Santa Cruz.

It had a pool, laundry room, hot tub and showers. Another bonus was that the park's base rate was for four people. Many of the parks set their base rate for two people and then charge more money for each extra person. That can get pricey fast with three kids.

The park was nice. Some of the people in the park seemed kind of dour, but I didn't go there to visit them anyway.

The little kids were surprised to see their grandparents there. My MIL wanted to join us and the park had one space left. The grandparents were in the space next to us.

I knew they were coming but also knew that my youngest daughter would drive me batty if she knew.

SJ was so excited that evening that I couldn't get him down to sleep. His grandfather got him asleep around twelve-thirty and his Dad brought him to bed.

About two hours later he woke up.

"All done. Grandma, Papa RV."

"No," I said, "They're night night. It's night night time."

This conversation went on for about AN HOUR before he went back to sleep.

Even so, he was up bright and early in the morning.

We got dressed and went to the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk. It has roller coasters and other carnival rides.

Let me tell you, the freaks were out. There were many interesting individuals there, and me without a camera.

Before I start capping on people, I need to remind you all that I am overweight. So I feel like I can comment when somebody is overweight also. Gee, on that note, I can comment on ugly people too. Woo-hoo!

One lady looked like the Michelin Man. Her legs had lumpy rolls of fat all the way up. When you are two or younger and you have fat rolls, you are cute. Forty or older - not so cute! The clencher was that she had on short shorts with her butt cheeks hanging out. AAARRRGGGHHH - my eyes!

One guy had on a hat like Slash in the band Gun's N Roses. Only he had long blonde hair like Axl Rose. My husband called him "Slush." (not to his face, of course.)

There were tons of girls in bikinis with their bellies hanging over the top. I thought the point of wearing a bikini was to show off your smoking bod, not your snacking bod.

Does anybody remember when there was a controversial billboard promoting a health club? The billboard said, "When the aliens come, they'll eat the fat ones first."

Well they can just swing by Santa Cruz. We were all there.

I told my MIL and my husband that I knew what had happened to the lost continent of Atlantis. They were like Americans. They all got too heavy and sunk the continent. North America, you're next.

And then, in order to keep us fat, there were plenty of places selling food guaranteed to clog the arteries. There were fried twinkies, funnel cakes, hot dogs, burgers fries, ice cream and all sorts of things on sticks.

Do Americans have an obsession with food on sticks? Hey put it on a stick and deep fry it, and we'll eat it - guaranteed.

I can imagine the conversations people have.

"Look Earl, deep-fried Nutter Butters on a stick."

"Betty, you know peanuts put me into anaphylactic shock."

"But, Earl it's ON A STICK."

For the first four hours on the boardwalk, we catered to the kids.

Then the grandparents took the two younger kids back to the RV park and the hubby and I rode some stuff together. My oldest daughter and my niece rode with us.

We rode the roller coaster twice. We rode some contraption that took us up in the air and flipped us upside down and twirled us in circles. We rode a ride where you got to shoot at ghosts with laser pistols. Hey, no vacation is complete without shooting something.

We ate decadent foods. MMMMMMMMM.

I got to see two different pictures of myself on the roller coaster. They had a camera set up to snap your photo at a certain spot. Why does everybody but me look normal in those? I am the only person who ends up looking like Quasimodo on ecstasy every single time!

We finally left the park and drove back to our camper.

In the car in front of us, was a skinny white boy who thought he was a gangster. He was bouncing up and down to music and waving his arm out the window making strange finger gestures. It was clearly one of the dumbest things I have ever seen.

My husband, my daughter, my niece and I were all rolling with laughter. The "gangster" saw us and gave us a pissed off look. We laughed harder. Fortunately, he didn't bust a cap in our asses.

There were a few parts of the vacation that didn't go smoothly. The brakes on the RV leaked some fluid and they need to be fixed.

The transmission on my van started acting up AGAIN. I had it fixed Monday and it was covered under the warranty. Phew.

When we were getting ready to leave town, my oldest daughter told me she didn't have any extended feeders left for her goldfish. This is the fish that lives in her bedroom that she is responsible for. Never mind that I had already gone to Petsmart earlier. Back I trekked.

The traffic was horrid.

But all vacations have their blips. By and large, it wasn't a bad one. I even lost half a pound. Only a thousand more to go. Hee hee.