Road trip, the Best Way to Torture Your Kids

We tortured our teenagers once by making them take a three-thousand mile roadtrip through several national parks.  The main thing they mention now is that Bud wore those stretch nylon coach shorts and a couple of gay guys hit on him.

In Yellowstone, he stopped for about the fourteenth time to try to get pictures of buffalo one afternoon.  The thrill of watching him try to get the perfect buffalo picture had worn thin, so the three of us watched from the car.  He fussed, tinkered, and messed with his camera, tripod and lenses till we were hoping a buffalo would gore him just enough to distract him. He worked frantically till a car pulled up just in front of him. A flambuoyant fellow trotted up to Bud, obviously interested in getting acquainted.

“Oh my, that’s some nice equipment you’ve got there,”

Ever polite, Bud thanked him, snapped a couple of random shots, grabbed his gear, and made his escape. He got no sympathy in the car! Finally, something good had happened!

“Dad, that guy, really admired your equipment! Ah ha ha ha ha!” For the rest of the trip, they worked equipment into the conversation at least ten times a day.

We stopped at a lodge that night.  As Bud was getting a room, he had a chance to make another friend. A friendly guy checking in at the same time told him, “I know you must put mayonnaise in that gorgeous beard.”

“Nope,” Bud snapped, turning to the kids. “Now get your mother so we can all go to dinner.”