Family Vacation

Scenes from our camping vacation to the Redwoods, also the celebration of our ten-year wedding anniversary.
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(As we greet a blackberry bramble enveloped in fog and mislabeled by California State Parks as our campsite)
Me: Honey! It’s where I always dreamed we’d awake on our ten-year anniversary!
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Chicken Noodle: I am afraid all of these trees are going to fall on my head.
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Chicken Little: I don’t want to hike. Carry me.
Chicken Noodle: You start hiking down the trail this instant or I’ll put you in time out!
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Captain Daddy: Do you think this fog is a metaphor for our marriage?
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Chicken Noodle: I am afraid a bear is going to eat us up.
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(I come around from the backside of the truck to find Captain Daddy violently shaking a water jug over open flames burning in green grass five feet from the fire pit but two feet from the tent. His face is the color of chalk.)
Me: What did I miss?
Chicken Noodle: Daddy started us a fire.
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Me: So, what do you think of your vacation so far?
Captain Daddy: I think it’s a good thing I didn’t have any expectations.
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Chicken Noodle: I am afraid the ocean is going to drown us.
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Me: So, the way I see it, we could pack up, hug one more big tree, and blow this joint.
Captain Daddy: Oh, baby, you turn me on with your words.
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(At one more big tree)
Chicken Noodle: I am not getting out of this car until we get to a motel!
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(In the pool of a motel on the freeway in Grants Pass)
Chicken Little: This is my very favorite part of our whole trip!
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(Back at home)
Me: Next time I guess we’ll just skip the whole national park thing and go straight to a Best Western on I-5.

For a similar story, see My Hawaiian Vacation in Quotes