Family Trip Rant

Just a little bit annoyed at the moment.

Being the first and only teenager in a family has it ups and downs. You act like an annoying little twit (which you are) but you also feel that your parents are just the same. For example, my family and I. This weekend was a fall break in school so we had Thursday and Friday off resulting in an extra long weekend. Defiantly a joke of a break in my opinion. In my mind I was going to catch up on homework, prepare for my upcoming finals and hang out with some friends. I have also had many big tests the past few weeks so I have been doing a lot of homework on the weekends in edition to sports practice and games. I was just ready to relax and have the weekend to myself.

Little did I know my parents had a complete different idea of what we were going to do. My family is really into camping, boating and enjoying nature which is great to a point. We tend to go camping a lot and I mean a lot. I went to Yuba Lake, Moab, Yellowstone, Tetons, Bear Lake and Flaming George twice. That is just within six hour car ride and only this year. I have also been to many other out of region areas but we will get to that later. Anyways, my parents came home Wednesday and decided that we were going camping the next morning out to Jackson Wyoming. I was pretty mad and asked if we could please say but they said no. I already had plans with one friend for Thursday and more plans for later that weekend. I was really annoyed so I complained and did what teenagers do. I had to go so we packed up and left Thursday morning. It was a five hour drive to the hotel and thats a long time in a car with people you are not too fond of at the moment. We slept in the hotel for the night which was nice but then we got up the next day and drove another hour and a half to our camp site.

We stayed in the Tetons National Park for two nights. We set up our pop up trailer, got the bikes down and then unpacked. Once we were done I was ready to chill but they decided we needed to go for a bike ride. We loaded up our bikes then drove down the road for about fifteen minutes. We biked to Jenny Lake and it was really pretty and I liked it but, I thought we were done. Once again, I was completely wrong. We kept biking for another 3 miles then we stopped at another lake and had a snack. After that I was really done but we just kept on going. We were going down hill for a good amount of this time so it wasn't bad but I was worried about the bike back up. I kept saying lets go back up and if you want to bike more once we get to the car we can. After a long time my parents agreed with me and we turned around and started biking back up. My dad and I went ahead and then stopped for my mom who was super slow. She finally came up to us and told us she had a flat tire. Of course we did not have a bike pump so she stayed put with my sister and my dad and I rode all the back to the car quite quickly to go get my mom. Mind you, this whole ride was back up the hill. I wasn’t tired physically I just really hated it. We got to the car and picked up my mom then headed back to the camp site. My thing is I really don’t love biking but I do like sports with some kind of purpose to them like shooting a lacrosse ball into the goal.

Anyway, the next day we drove to Yellowstone and looked at the geysers all day long. I thought it was pretty cool but after five hours I was tired of watching water shoot in the air. We finally went back and had dinner and a campfire. The next day we got up and packed up everything which took about three hours. (UGH) Then we drove home which took five hours. I also spilled a cup of noodles all over me which was super hot and sticky. I finally got home and had the fabulous opportunity of ending my weekend with homework which was a blast. It was a fun weekend but I would have preferred to stay at home which sounds like I am a little brat but that's okay right now. To conclude, family trips are annoying and painful but sometimes you just have to suck it up.

Jenny Lake Tetons National Park. Half way through the bike ride.

The mountains were pretty I guess.

Happy traveling,
~Corrine