On the heels of my Vacation Fails post and during the last “official” days of summer, this is the perfect guest post for this week!  It is by my wonderful friend Lucy Ball, who is just as funny as her namesake.  I’m sure you will agree and by the end of this post will also be saying “I Love Lucy!”  And now I present Lucy…she’s got some ‘splainin’ to do! 

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Hello, friends and fans of Momopolize! My name is Lucy and I blog randomly over at My Life As Lucille.  I can also be found on Facebook and Twitter.  I write about whatever pops into my head plus all of the ridiculously crazy family drama that keeps me seeing my therapist on a weekly basis. Nice to meet you!

It is my great pleasure to be a guest writer here today. I LOVE Momopolize! I hope you enjoy the following description of our family vacations. It’s sort of appropriate, especially now that I’ve done it up right once again by rolling our van and camper this summer and completely totaling them both. Yah. It’s how I “roll.” Ahahaha! Hope you enjoy!

This post was originally published here.

I Need A Vacation From Vacations

I get around. Metaphorically speaking, of course. And I’m convinced that my family is cursed when it comes to vacations. My family was plagued by bad luck and misfortune.

For example, my sister and I were heading to South America when we accidentally locked our keys and passports in the car at the airport. Someone in the parking lot managed to fish the keys out of the door, which was slightly ajar. When we arrived in South America, we had a mix up with our bus reservations. We ended up on a completely random bus driving through the Andes in the middle of the night. With zero cell phone coverage. With no way for our family back in the U.S. to locate us. And only a slight handle on Espanol. We managed to survive in spite of ourselves.

There was the rental car in Panama City when I was in high school. Our car would randomly stall in the middle of the street for no reason. In order to restart it, my dad would have to pop the trunk and push a button inside next to the spare tire. This happened SEVERAL times on that trip.

And then there was the Royal Crown Family Restaurant in AZ. After hours of negotiating our rental car reservations and driving through the foothills at midnight, we finally found a restaurant to grab a bite. We hadn’t eaten since lunch and were all starving and cranky. Unfortunately, our waitress was more interested in sitting in a booth with a trucker and slurping on beer from the 12 pack of Schlitz he had on his table. We watched with ferocious anticipation as our plates sat under the warming lamp for no less than 45 minutes.

We ended up eating Red Hot Burritos from a Stop ‘N’ Go gas station down the road at 1:30 AM.

The next day, we visited Montezuma’s castle while in Flagstaff. After paying $75 to get in, the first sign inside said:

 THIS IS NOT MONTEZUMA’S CASTLE. HE WAS NEVER ACTUALLY HERE.

Seriously???

We have locked our keys in rental cars. More than once. We’ve boarded an airplane looking for our seats in Row E. There wasn’t a Row E since we were on the entirely wrong plane.

There was the DEEP SEA fishing trip when we all ended up sea sick, hanging over the side of the boat as it rocked and tipped spraying sea salt on our sun-parched faces. For 8 freaking hours.

While in Italy, I managed to get myself locked in a stairway in the hotel with no way out but the emergency/alarm exit.

Still, I wouldn’t trade any of them for the amazing experiences I’ve had. Probably.

After all, the BEST part of any vacation (mishaps and all) is when I pull up in the driveway, breathe a sigh of relief that we’re all in one piece, truly glad to be home.

Hope your summer vacation was far less exciting than mine was!

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P.S. Lucy and I should NEVER, ever, ever go on vacation together.  Although it would make for one heck of a blog post.  😉