Back in Time to My Favorite Family Vacation

Today I am going to go back... Way back to when I was a little kid and we took a family vacation. My father is a wild land firefighter so we always took vacations in the off season. This particular year we got tickets to Six Flags Great America. I think I was probably 12 which would make my brothers about 11 and 8 at the time. We drove down a cousins house near Modesto. We were staying in their guest house I think. We spent the first day fishing in their pond. I caught a catfish and was so excited. We were doing catch and release so my dad helped me release the big guy back into the pond after I caught him. We went to bed early that night all very excited to pick up our cousin Sara in the morning and head to the amusement park. So we wake up bright and early Tuesday morning. Go pick up Sara and head to the park. We reach the park and the sun is still coming up so we are not overly surprised to not see hardly any vehicles. We find a parking spot near the front of the park and pile out. My mom, dad, brothers, cousin and I all very excited to be the first ones at the park we walk up to the sign to see what time the park opens so we can get in. On the sign was a very big Closed Sign. Us kids are confused and disappointed. Why would the park be closed? My parents are trying to laugh it off as a National Lampoon level disaster of a vacation. Nobody told them that the park is only open on weekends during the fall season. We spend the next hour or so posing for pictures with the closed sign and trying to figure out where to go next. My cousin suggests Monterey Bay aquarium. My parents had no objections so we pile into the car and drive to the aquarium. We pull up to the front of the aquarium and my mom gets out to check ticket prices and to buy the tickets while we look for a place to park our car. When we meet back up with mom she says tickets for her and dad are too expensive so she got tickets for my cousin and us kids. My cousin got a college student discount and all of the kids were young enough to qualify for children's tickets. My parents mean while were going to go walk the pier and check out Monterey. Its been 17 years since I have been in the aquarium but I remember being in awe of how big it was and how much sea life we saw. I remember thinking that it was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen looking into some of those under water enclosures. We checked out the tide pools and looked at all of the exhibits. It was an amazing visit. After spending hours looking at the sea life we left the aquarium to find mom and dad out on the pier. One of the memories from this trip that stands out the most was that while on the pier my mom tried raw squid. It was of course dead but the whole rest of the trip she was convinced that a tentacle stuck to the inside of her throat and was causing her to cough. After we dropped my cousin off at her house we spent hours teasing my mom about the squid stuck in her throat. We had so much fun that trip laughing and singing in the car. Exploring new places and seeing sights that left us speechless. This was probably the vacation that the most things go wrong during it, and yet memories like this are what make me so desperate to take my girls and travel with them. Even if its here around the states showing them things that open up their view points and giving them fond memories to look back on. A perfect vacation doesn't always have to go perfectly right the whole time. Just being there for our children and showing them that we are human and that we love them is often the things that make the best memories and leave the longest most lasting impressions.