Remember that time when I was discussing how strange my family is? Yeah it's about to get a lot weirder. Tomorrow we embark on journey to the Thousand Islands territory (would be a territory?) of upstate New York to visit my grandparents, my mom's parents. It's basically my most favorite place in the world. Kayaking at dawn, fishing for pike at dusk, swimming (...haha, NOT) and drinking mimosas at breakfast! WOOT! However, to get to this wonderful ethereal place, one has to drive eight hours with my chaotic family.
This means a lot of things. Eighties music, hats, really bad "family" games and countless other things such as my parent's dueting to Kid Rock and Sheryl Crow's "Picture." Strange. And not just in that "I'm a teenager and I don't feel like doing anything with my family."
First of all, by hour three my sister and I both have the Ipods in so we don't realize it when the eighties music begins. This usually consists of bad solos sung by both my parents (mostly my mother) until Caroline and I come to realize what is actually going on.
Hat time is a wondrous time. It's been a part of my reality since I was really young. It's exactly as it sounds. Those who don't have hats are ridiculed for the rest of the ride. It's like one of those very strange traditions that no one questions anymore. When my sister decided to bring her friend Katie with her on this trip, she warned her and TOLD her to bring a hat for hat time. Katie didn't. Good luck Katie! :D
If one has played "Animal, vegetable, mineral" they know it's a game where one person thinks of an animal, vegetable...or mineral and the other person has to ask questions until he or she knows what the first person is thinking of. In my family we play our own version of the game called "Horse, donkey, mule." Think of a famous horse, donkey or mule and you're in. In the past few weeks we even expanded this game to "Horse, donkey, mule, z-donk (a cross between a zebra and donkey), unicorn, hippogriff (if you don't know what a hippogriff is, x out of this blog RIGHT NOW.)
Ahem.
My life.
So basically, drives with the fam are strange and slightly difficult, but extremely fun for most, if not all, hours of the trip.
The best is when we finally do arrive in the territory and have to cross the Thousand Islands Bridge--a large green bridge that connects us to Wellesley Island (where my grandparents live.) When we go, we cross the bridge and then have to loop around this little bend and for a split second, it looks like we might travel back up the bridge.
"OH! HERE WE GO! WE'RE GOING UP THE BRIDGE AGAIN!"
My father always, and I mean always, hollers.
Even when no one new is there.
:]
Eight hours with the fam? LET'S GO!
I'm thinking of a horse, donkey, mule, z-donk, unicorn or hippogriff. If you guessed Buckbeak, THEN YOU WIN! :D
Squid hat
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