Normally, I tend to write about things involving my faith and how it is connected to issues today. I would like to take a break from that and inform you of a short vacation involving the beach, a clown car, and a free hotel room.

My family and I were traveling to Florida to watch my brothers in a 3-day basketball tournament. We had planned to stop at the Clearwater beach.

As I first mention the beach, many of you probably have happy thoughts. The sand, warm weather, sunny skies, and the ocean of course... Well, we get there, and it's overcast. Living in Pennsylvania all of my life, I never ventured too far out of the state, but I knew enough about the sun. You put sunscreen on when it's really sunny out. If the sun's not out, you don't need it. Easy enough.

Now I was never really roaming about outside with my shirt off growing up, because honestly, there was no need to. So when I did go to take it off to go swimming, let's just say it was probably a good idea to wear sunglasses in my vicinity. White reflects sunlight very well. I am basically a scaled down version of the moon, but the difference is I'm actually brighter during the day.

I've actually had people try to argue about who has a whiter complexion. I'm currently undefeated.

Anyways, we get to the beach, and it's overcast, so there's no need for sunscreen, right? And we were only going to be out for an hour or so. There's definitely no need to even bring it.

Oops.

Being the beach noobs that we are, it turns out that apparently, it's actually worse when it's overcast, as you apparently burn easier. If you don't believe me, let me tell you that I had the worse sunburn of MY LIFE after we left the beach that day.

There was a basketball game later in the afternoon, and we had gone to the beach around 1:00. I started to feel a little uncomfortable an hour or so after we had left the beach, but I figured I still had sand on my body since I hadn't had a chance to shower before the game. I noticed my skin was a little red, but I didn't think much of it. My family comes walking into the gymnasium like the boss family we are after an hour at the beach. For some reason though, as I was looking around, people were quickly turning their heads with grins on their faces. I was then wonderfully informed by my brother that, "You guys got fried!"

I will never trust overcast weather again.

Fast forward to the next day when we are leaving, and unfortunately the sunburn had settled in. Changing clothes was quite an adventure as all of a sudden, all the clothes I owned had been made out of 36 grit sandpaper. Even moving my arms had become one of the most painful things I've ever done. We begin our drive home.

Yeah, I may have forgot to mention, but we drove from Pennsylvania to Florida. If the ride to Florida was long, we hadn't seen anything yet.

We also had rented a Chevy Sonic to make the journey. There is not a whole lot of leg room in that car, especially in the back. When you're brother, mom, and dad all could fry an egg on their arms, getting in a small car was certainly not appealing.

We hadn't planned to stop at any hotels along the journey. We would only be staying for one night, and most hotels and motels are pretty expensive. My dad is a pro at traveling with only a few hours of sleep, the best solution for us was to avoid spending the money and instead just stop at a rest stop sometime during the night for a quick snooze, mainly for my dad, and then we'd be back on the road. That way, we'd make the trip in a day and be back home faster. It was currently in the winter season, so cold weather was starting to sound good back in good ol' Pa.

It was starting to get late, so my dad made the decision to take our nighttime snooze at a rest stop. We pulled up, and all attempted to try to sleep as our bodies were aching.

Now I take pride in the fact that I can fall asleep anywhere. At that time though, my sunburn was the worse on my back, and I could not go to sleep. As I stated before, there is not much leg-room in the backs of Chevy Sonics. Unless you're a newborn.

So I asked my loving dad if i could switch seats with him. There had to be leg-room in the front seat because otherwise, where do the pedals go? That way, I could kneel down with the front of my upper body resting on the seat itself, and so that my back wasn't touching anything. The down-side was that it would be pretty much wedged between the steering wheel and the seat, but at least it wasn't making contact!

I am finally about to fall asleep when all of a sudden, I hear my dad talking. Well, more like sternly talking. Actually, it was more like yelling.

My dad talks to everybody. I mean EVERYBODY. So it wasn't that out of the ordinary for him to be having a conversation with a stranger through a car door window, so I wasn't really alarmed. That is until I realized, "He never yells at someone." I knew something was wrong when I heard him say, "You need to leave," followed by a shriek from my mom in the seat next to me.

I then heard my dad yell, "Bryce! Lock the doors!" What that car lacked in leg-room, it made up for in buttons on the door.

The next moments were filled with me frantically punching at the rocket ship buttons trying to find one that made the doors lock. My mom found one on her door and pushed that sucker down so hard that the doors could've been locked forever.

Apparently, a guy had walked up to our windows and was peering in through the windows. He had asked my dad if we were alright, and when my dad said that we were fine, he started to act really shady. When my dad told him to leave, he wouldn't. When my dad started to raise his voice, the man started getting worked up and kept reaching into his pocket at something. Things started to escalate, and the guy wasn't walking away. Cue the, "Bryce! Lock the doors!"

So now, we have to figure out how to drive away. I'm 12 at the time, and have never driven a car, let alone on a highway away from a man that would not walk away from the car.

This is where the clown car comes into play. A lobster family proceeds to imitate a clown family, as I end up in the passenger seat, my dad in the driver's seat, and my mom in the back seat, all within a Chevy Sonic.

My dad now no longer cares to stop at a rest stop and attempts to make the drive back without any sleep. I will give him props as he made it about until 4 am in the morning, when he was seriously having trouble staying awake. He decided to give in and bust out the wallet for an expensive 4 hour sleep in a not so shiny motel.

He walked in and asked the worker if we could get a room. The man was surprised, since he'd be paying full price for only a few hours. My dad explained what had happened. and the worker was super understanding. He said we could stay in the room until 10 the next day at no cost to us. Dad had hit the deal of the century at that point.

We all piled into the motel room, which was now looking like a five-star hotel. A soft bed in an air conditioned room was little bit easier to sleep in than a car, and considering the little sleep we had, we all went to sleep promptly.

Our journey was almost over as we began to see signs of winter as the temperature started to decrease and rain turned to snow. We arrived back at our house, and I was excited to feel the cool air on my roasting skin, thinking it would feel great!

It was the cherry on top to our misadventure as it turns out, and was worse than the hot air. I jumped out of the car, and all of a sudden, I felt a stinging sensation all over my arms and back. I'm not sure what caused it, but I think it had something to do with the goosebumps that I hadn't felt when it was warm out. That on top of my skin attempting to heal itself. For the next few days, my favorite season of the year was no longer my favorite as my body was trying to heal from sunburn in 30 degree weather.

So that is how my family went from beach bums to getting a free motel room in only a matter of a day. I can laugh at the story now, as things just got worse from the moment we got to the beach. I loved getting to see my brothers, as I didn't get to much since the went to college in Georgia. Despite getting fried, the beach was very much enjoyable since we don't do it that often.

I'd call that a McGarvey Family Vacation in a nutshell. We're going to give Chevy Chase a run for his money.

God bless!