re: What is the worst vacation you've ever been on...

Loving this thread. It's taking me down memory lane.

My Dad did not go on vacations at all when I was a kid. Various aunts and uncles took pity and let me tag along on their family vacations. I would go on 4 or 5 each summer. Most by car. It would get to the point where I was looking forward to school starting because I was worn arse out. Lots of shite went down; but I loved every minute of the craziness. Wouldn't trade those times, good or bad, for anything.

Will share this one particular trip to the Grand Canyon. I think I was 9 or ten. This is 1979, maybe. My dad's sister and her "yankee" husband - my 2 boy cousins and me. We're traveling in my Dad's old suburban - light blue, wood trim, white walled tires. Plain as frick on the inside - the kind of vinyl seats you couldn't sit on right away if you were wearing shorts because it would burn the back of your legs. Day one, my uncle runs over a dog and won't stop; all kids and my aunt freak out. Huge fight ensues between the grown-ups, kids start crying. That night at the first hotel stop my uncle breaks his glasses. so we spend the whole next day, with my aunt driving and my uncle screaming at her, trying to find somewhere to fix his glasses. Glasses were never properly fixed.
Second night we realize that one of my cousins left his suitcase in the hotel in Texas so he has to wear his brother's clothes. They start fighting. They fought the whole trip over those clothes (I still give them so much shite about that)
Get to the Grand Canyon after what seemed like a 2 week trip of non-stop stopping and my Uncle opens the car door and hits me in face; busts my nose, blood everywhere. More crying. Spend day at ER. Cousins spend the rest of the trip calling me Marcia. Every Grand Canyon photo has me and my f'ed up nose.

Good times!!

Oh my aunt was constantly yelling at me "don't you dare tell anyone about this". Heard that about a 1000 times.

ETA one of my favorite photos ever is of the 5 of us at the Grand Canyon: me and my bandaged nose, uncle wirh his wonky glasses, one cousin in a t shirt I swear was mine, the other cousin looking like he wanted to push someone into the Canyon, and most curiously was my aunt with this beatific smile. Not sure it she found some xanax or managed to screw one of those donkey guides.
Pic is framed in my living room. My kids, sadly, just don't get it.