What's your dream vacation?

My dream vacation would involve getting up real early in the morning and driving over to OJ Mayo's house to pick him up for a surprise trip. I don't know where OJ Mayo lives, but in this fantasy, we're at the point in our relationship where I have his address. Anyway, he knows we're going on a road trip but doesn't know where. So he's all packed and hops in the car and it's still not light out and he's tired so I make sure to give him a blanket and tell him he can sleep if he wants for a while, but he's too excited.

So we crank up the tunes (he likes Styx) and head West. He eventually drifts away to sleep and I have to stop myself from watching him in his slumber, and keep my eyes on the road. As the sun starts to rise over the horizon, I lightly rub his shoulder. "OJ, look, the sun is coming up". He yawns and stretches, smiling as we enjoy a beautiful sunrise while cruising the highway.
A few hours into the trip he still has no idea where we're headed. He keeps guessing but I'm not telling! We chit chat about different things, stuff in our life, jobs, girls, sports (he likes basketball). He tells me he's never been on a train before. He's in for a big surprise. As we break into Chicago, he's mesmerized by all the sights; including trains! I smile at him and tell him "This is it!" He can hardly contain his excitement.

I'll spare you the rest of the details, but we get a nice hotel and spend the day in the city. I take him to the aquarium (they have a nice penguin exhibit, we got to touch one and get our pictures taken with it!). We get sushi for dinner and start walking back to the train station. It starts to rain. Lucky I brought an umbrella. He laughs and says he doesn't mind getting a little wet. We hold hands and start jogging back.

I took the liberty of Photoshopping him into some recent travel photos, to give you a better image of what I'm talking about.


After spending the day exploring the city, we rest up for the next day. We take a nice, long nature walk and learn about the indigenous natives in Illinois. We also find an abandoned cabin and make up ghost stories about it. There were all kinds of fruits on the ground, fallen from trees in certain areas of the forest; OJ kept saying they were papayas but I really don't think they were. But I went along with it.

So after two wonderful days in beautiful Chicago, we load up and head back home. He's so tuckered out, he sleeps almost the entire way back. I got him a really nice Chicago shirt while we were there and he loves it. I drop him off at home and I head back to my place. I throw all my stuff on the counter, too tired to unpack just yet, and take a quick shower. Out of the shower, I check my phone to find a text from OJ that reads: "Thanks for the trip bran, you're my best friend".
I shed a single tear and smile; thinking about what's in store for next time.