Family vacation Chevy Chase style

The trip began with the slam of the car door – on my arm. Bruise to follow.

My husband punched the address of the Lake Tahoe rental into the GPS. It echoed “Recalculating,” then went silent. Do you think that was a sign? When he’d finally messed with the settings long enough, a scary sounding man with a guttural accent ordered me to do something in Afrikaans. I was lost already and I was only two blocks from home.

As the extended family, a total of sixteen, arrived in Tahoe and claimed their space, Cheezy, the six-foot-three gentle giant, last to arrive was relegated to a five-foot white iron rod day bed decorated with little gold hearts. The rental housed some ancient video machines, PacMan, Donkey Kong, Q-bert, and an old pinball machine. The house hummed of Star Wars.

Not everyone was happy all the time. Hikes never started on time. No one agreed where to park the caravan of cars. Voices raised. The water in Emerald Bay was chilling, rather freezing, but that didn’t stop the few brave souls who actually found their swimsuits from the piles of clothes, left, of course, in doorways.

How so many related people could turned out so different, I’d never know. Come to think of it, they were unique the day they arrived home from the hospital.

An adventure with the two older grandkids summed up the vacation. The four year old Worm began a parasailing adventure as an observer, too little mass to guarantee she would not take flight. Her eyes, big as saucers, lit up as the boat deckhand strapped her into the smallest harness. She fit. Her grin, expanded from ear to ear in Carol Burnett post-facelift style, as she moved to rider status,. The rope unfurled and the parachute escaped into the blue sky. Squeezed between her mom and dad, the Worm not even visible from the boat, sailed in the breeze. The now seven-year-old Bug voiced concerned, “I’m starting to think twice about this ride.” Upon her return, the Worm, smile even broader, announced, “That was awesome!”

The deckhand strapped my grandson and I into our swing harness. More reserved, the Bug’s look was somber. As the parachute rose to its 1200 foot height, he looked at me then the speck of a boat, and screamed, “I want to go down NOW!” I calmed him, but his body was rigid, his face grimaced, his eyes closed, and arms tightened around the straps. “I’d rather be home doing nothing than up here.”

“You did it! Let’s not tell anyone you were scared,” I said just before our landing. Still no smile. “Everyone will think you were brave.”

“How’d you like it, Bug?” his mom asked.

I winked at him. “It was great,” the grounded Bug answered.

Shannon was right. If you take enough pictures, everyone eventually believes they had fun.

Goodbye, Cheezy. Goodbye, Hot Wheelz. Goodbye, GAP and family. Goodbye, Sis and family.

Goodnight, everyone. It’s good to be back in our empty-nester home. Yet I miss Tahoe.