There are so many words that can be used to describe traveling with family. Flawless isn’t one of them. When you travel with kids it’s hard to pull off an hour without misadventure, much less an entire trip!
And yet, our family was on a bit of a “winning” travel streak…until last weekend.
I can honestly say that as much as I enjoy travel going well, I equally find ways to laugh at our own misfortune. Things happen. Particularly when you travel with kids!
Over the years I’ve really enjoyed sharing our travel bloopers. In fact, some of my misadventure posts turned out to be the most popular posts on our website!
I’ve come to the conclusion that sometimes knowing what not to do is just as helpful as knowing what to do. Especially when it comes to travel. That, and who doesn’t enjoy reading about other parent’s disasters/embarrassing moments with their children?
Without exception, every trip our family took in 2017 came with some issue. Despite all the planning in the world, things went wrong. At the most random- and inopportune times- my kids misbehaved, said something out of character, or threw up. We got lost, our keys didn’t work, the weather didn’t cooperate, and we missed a flight.
None of it was really earth shattering, and we had our fair share of laughs…after the fact!
2018 brought more travel for our family- but without all the misadventure of the previous year. We realized we were on a bit of a good travel streak where crazy things didn’t seem to happen.
Aside from our car being broken into out West (which is a whole different level of “issue” that we still aren’t laughing about!)- we were on a pretty successful travel streak. I dare say we’d gotten a little overconfident in things just working out well.
This past weekend our family planned a quick little getaway to the mountains. The main reason for our trip was a visit to our favorite apple orchard. (Side note: I saw a funny meme on social media a few days before our trip. It’s pretty accurate!)
Anyway, with overly optimistic enthusiasm we arrived at Sky Top Orchard. Truthfully, I did notice some dark clouds in the sky as we set out into the orchard with our bucket. But I didn’t think through all the implications.
We were on a mission to make some family memories, take some cute pictures, and fill our basket with apples.
Since we’d been to that particular orchard before, we knew the best mountain views were found at the far edge of the property. We hiked our way through the rows of apple trees and finally found the perfect clearing to snap some pictures. As I took the first picture, a large rain drop fell on my hand.
I looked around for someone to take a quick family picture and found it odd that there wasn’t another person in sight. Apparently everyone else saw the weather radar AND the big stormy clouds!
Before we got a single apple in our bucket, it started raining.
Since we were at least half a mile (downhill) from the apple barn, we sought shelter under a tree to wait out the rain. At first it was fun- I snapped a few more pictures of the kids and things felt cozy huddled together under the branches.
We even managed to pick a few apples for our bucket- all from the tree providing us shelter. In hindsight, it was a pretty bad idea since I don’t believe those apples were even ripe!
But then it started to pour.
It became painfully obvious that our game plan of waiting out the rain was a bad one.
Already soaked, we made an uphill run for the apple barn while there was an actual monsoon happening around us.
Along the way Brent stopped to pick apples since we’d prepaid for our bucket and there was no way we weren’t going to get our money’s worth! The kids and I watched with amusement as he slowly made his way up the hill with our apples!
While this wasn’t the apple picking experience we envisioned, we definitely made some memories. And, now that we’ve dried out, we can laugh at our misfortune!
Speaking of fortune… I’m no farmer, but I’m about 100% certain not one of the apples we came home with is ripe. In our soaking wet haste, we (well, Brent) picked apples that weren’t quite ready.
One time before when our travel plans didn’t go perfectly I joked that we made lemonade out of lemons. In this case, we’re literally going to make applesauce out of the bad apples! Same principle, right?
Have you ever had travel plans go wrong? Or enjoyed a “winning” travel streak where things go really well?
You may also enjoy reading:
Midnight Mishaps and Other Vacation Misadventures
The Time I Jumped Out Of An Airplane
Winning Travel Streak Finally Broken: Misadventure at the Orchard
