Family vacations can be fun, you're getting away from school, work and although you may miss your friends, you probably need a little time away from them too. But we all know that two days in you're complaining about seeing your family so often, well duh you’re on vacation. You complain to your parents that you miss your friends and can’t wait for this week to be over, you spend all day looking at post updates from your squad. You are in a texting fight with your bff over something ridiculous, then your father walks in talking about his grand new idea of what to do today, you're going hiking.
Well this is exactly how a week with my family went while we were in the mountains. A family that hikes together experiences misery together, it all started when my father thought it would be fun to spend the week in the mountains. Don't get me wrong I love the mountains, I’d prefer the mountains over the beach, but it was such short notice that I hardly had time to change my shifts. We had a two hour car drive from hell, my sister coughing her guts up, my dad yelling at my mom for not knowing what was wrong with her, and then there was me, starring out the window hoping for a miracle, the look on my face explained everything. Not only did I suffer for two hours in the craziest ass car ride of my life but the three hour flight to Denver, Colorado was from hell, in the row ahead of me was a mother, her baby and her toddler, whom all decided that right now was best time to have a tantrum. This went on for the whole flight, no joke. Once we finally made it to our destination, things finally started to look up, our baggage came on time, we got the first shuttle to the rental car zone, but as we know, all good things don't last forever. My dad was handed keys to a Prius, which not only didn’t fit our baggage but we were going to the mountains, where there is snow still, even in the middle of summer, there was no way we were putting our life in the hands of a Prius. My dad calmly went and spoke to one of the rental car employees, pleading for a different car, and there it was the keys to biggest car in the lot, the mother of all cars, a Ford Explorer. God had finally given us a brake, we jumped into that car and ogled at the new car, leather seats, front and back seat warmers, GPS and new tires. We hit the road traveling in style, since we weren't staying in Denver it was about another 1 hour drive to our final destination, Key Stone a small ski village where it had recently snowed. But there was no worry, we had the new tricked out Explorer, we were traveling with peace of mind. However if you've ever found yourself traveling down I-70 in Colorado then you’d know about Eisenhower tunnel, which is a tunnel that take you through a mountain, at a steep decline, its dark and narrow and packed. At this point you'd accept whatever fate god has in store for you. Fun fact about steep declines and mountains, runaway truck ramps are around practically every corner, what else is also around every corner…a runaway truck. Now how and the hell could my family vacation get any more crazy, well apparently very easily. ( Just a quick side note, this wasn’t our first time to Key Stone, our family has been there before and loved our stay, however, this stay was just sheer bad luck.) For the sake of time, and a lack of ridiculous antics, I'm going to skip a head in my vacation to where all the shit went down.
Monday, started off rocky as you know and didn’t end well either, I made the idiotic idea of taking a short hike within the first few hours we arrived in Key Stone. This doesn't seem like it would be that bad of an idea, but theres this illness called Altitude Sickness, this happens when you aren't hydrated well enough and it hit me hard because I was also from a coastal state, and hadn't had any water practically all morning. I didn't realize what my chest pain was at first, but it felt like an elephant was using my body as a bed. I was gasping for air, but my parents who both are nurses passed this off as a panic attack, I was away from my “norm” and apparently it upset me. After hours of complaining to my dad and mom about my pain they dove me up to the welcome center. *they have a first aid station there* However with my luck the first aid station closes after a certain time and it being 2 am in the morning, they were not open, so my dad goes up to the one employee there, a really gorgeous guy that was around my age at that time, and points to me, he explains what was going on and here i was looking a hot mess, sweat pants and smeared makeup and all, he then told my dad the closest hospital was the next town over, about a 30 minute drive through the mountains or an hour drive by high way. We took the mountain by pass and lord knows there were so many twist and turns on this bypass it was unbelievable, we did make in one piece and there was no wait in the ER. My doctor took one look at me and laughed, she knew exactly what was going on, but she thought it would be a great way to cheer me by asking me if i had partaken in any activities that at the moment could only be found in Colorado. She asked if i had smoke any weed while here, my dad laughed and said no, he jokingly then said “ are you offering?” Really i remember from my visit to that ER was the all female crew, literally no males there at all, which would explain why my dad was so popular that night. After the niceties were over, she told that i did in fact have altitude sickness and from now on should take it easy, drink plenty of water and keep me on oxygen, but only at night. After all this drama, when we got back to the house my dad and I then, drove across town to an oxygen supply store which graciously opened their doors hella late for us. The man that worked there was a god, I've never seen a man that beautiful in my life, he asked me questions as though he was like my older brother trying to protect his little sister. I was asked how much oxygen I needed and as soon as the medical questions started popping and turned to my father who was ready for his part of the discussion. After our long night, we finally got piece of mind and a good nights sleep. Skip ahead to the end of the week, this is where the story gets really good, All this information that you read (maybe read) was leading up to this point. The day of our big hike was finally upon us, I loved to hike and was told to hold off for a few days and I was so excited. We get to the site of the hike and i noticed, this wasn't a hike it was just climbing up a shit ton of steps, hiking is trying to find your own way up a mountain not climb fucking steps. Still I kept my mind open to the new idea of just an outdoor step master machine. The view was supposed to be breathtaking so i was still excited to see the top, we start our journey up, but half way through my sister said she was done, but she being special needs couldn't stay by herself so my mother asked if i could stay with her and when my mom and dad get back i could travel the rest of the way up. I reluctantly complied with her, and sat with my sister, about a 30 minutes to an hour later my mom climbs down looking awful, right in front of me and my sister she throws up, now we had a huge meal before we came here, so he pushed herself too far for such a full stomach, feeling as though I now had to make sure my mom didn't die on the mountain I waited until my dad was done with the climb, but you know what happened with my crappy ass luck, i literally kicked a hornets nest. Long story short, i got stung, my mom threw up, my sister was tired, but my dad got to see the breathtaking view that I was dying to see. Did he take pictures, no, and the best thing out of this whole long story, my sister was still coughing her guts up because she had bronchitis. Also i still never got to see that breathtaking view. The point to my story, even though something bad happened to our family, we are able to look back on this trip and laugh about it, its become an inside joke with our family. We haven't been back to Colorado since, and i doubt we will be back.
