Michael Juray
February 13, 2008
"Are we there yet?" I could hear myself saying every other minute. As far as I knew, it was just another regular drive. Five, ten, the occasional 20 minute drive. I was horribly wrong. I was on a trip to South Carolina, where I was destined to be every Summer and Christmas, and if things took a turn for the worse, every family death or injury. Normally, I would be playing my gameboy, or using my laptop. Except there was a small problem, none of them were invented yet! I was 4 at the time, and I thought of the trip to be another quick trip to Shop-rite, or Wal-mart. But I was horribly wrong. My trip to South Carolina was to be the longest trip of my life. 12 hours through several states, in a gray musty old car, with the occasional stop at a gas station or restaraunt going who knows where!? My fox pomeranian bounced around in the back, excited to be on the road. It relied on gas stations to relieve herself. My brother sat next to me, on the opposite side of the seat. My mom and dad sat up front, my mom driving us. I sat in the back of the car, bored, watching as we passed large fields and small towns. I got carsick about once or twice, but I eventually got over it. Pennslvania Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, state by state, the car ride was brutal and tedius, but eventually, we got to our destination, South Carolina.
The next thing I rememebr, I recall a family of 2 backing out of the garage of our new vacation house for what must have been the last time, because I never remember them coming back, they left a lot of stuff. Thanks alot! There was odds, ends, and junk laying everywhere! My family had some cleaning to do! I left my brother, mother, and father downstairs while I ascended a flight of stairs. The main floor of my new house consisted of one living room, a dining room, and a kitchen. The floor was hardwood except for the kitchen, which had linoleum tiles. The ceiling had an orignal "popcorn" design, with small chunks of paint that coated the ceiling. I bypassed all three rooms and went up another flight of rug covered stairs to the third floor. The third floor of the house had one bathroom, and three bedrooms, and two small closets. I walked to the room at the far end of the hallway I was in, and sat down at a bed that consumed half of the small room. The bed did not capture my attention, but the drawers did. I opened all of the drawers. They were empty, except for one which contained a bright orange bead. I put the bead in my pocket and continued to explore the rest of my house I entered the kitchen of the main floor, and noticed a large refridgerator, a sink, a stove and oven combination, and all the other parts that make up a kitchen. I walked downstairs and saw a group of new people. There were two women, one old and one young, an old woman in her 70's, and I saw a tall skinny man outside talking to my father.
A few minutes later, I was carpooling with these aliens. As we drove through the town of South Carolina, it's wide open spaces, small, cozy looking houses, and large stretches of road, looked warm and inviting and was no doubt a place where I wouldn't mind spending my vacation weeks. As the car pulled into a large parking lot of a store, the store looked quite familiar. Wal-Mart! It was no doubt a place that made me feel safe in this strange land. The Wal-mart took up quite some space! It looked like miles from my point of view. As I followed my mom as she picked
up a shopping cart, I noticed that this Wal-mart had a grocery section, that was new! The Wal-mart I used to go shopping at only sold clothes and household needs, as well as toys. But this Wal-mart had that and much and more. It was quite a trip. As we walked back to the car an hour later, I was ready to go home and take a nap. But what was happening? This wasn't the route I remember taking here. Where was mom going? As I watched from the back of the car as we went down more mysterious routes. I finally understood that we were going to my grandma's house. We entered the house, and it was quite small. I heard a chirping sound which was familiar to my pet cocateil at home, I followed to where the sound was coming from, and found that my Grandma's bird was very similar to mine, as I reached out to pet it, it became agressive. It hissed at my finger in a mad attempt to bite it. Perhaps petting it wasn't the best of ideas. I looked around at a second forigen house, I noticed a pink fluffy carpet underneath me, and a small house consiting of five rooms and a bathroom. I walked through the house and I noticed a door, I attempted to open it, unfortunantly, it was locked. The door remained locked for 8 years until my grandma got a new house. The room always posed a mystery to me until we were cleaning it out so we could move my grandma to a new house, when I finally did enter the room, it was empty, consisting only of old catalogs that had hand drawn furniture and clothing. I walked into the kitchen, and into the bathroom. The bathroom was old and practically falling apart.
As the week went on, we moved out old things and moved in new things in, visting our family members and whatnot, when it finally came time to say goodbye, It was very sad. I was hoping that my vacation would never end, and that I would get to live in Sunny South Carolina for the rest of my life. But, eventually, we had to leave. We said our goodbyes, and loaded our luggage back into the car and prepared for another 12 hour trip through several states. I was indeed not looking forward to it, however, I survived it. South Carolina was indeed a fun place to vacation, and I was indeed looking forward to our next trip.
As things turned out, South Carolina played one of the most important roles in my life, one of the most memorable items that was moved in must have been a futon. It was marked as my bed during our vacations as it sat in the basement of our house. The first night it was bought into the home, I was most doubtful about sleeping on it. However, the first night I slept on it, I fell asleep within 2 minutes, and I actually stayed asleep. Normally, at home, it would take me 30 minutes to fall asleep, waking up every other hour. But at South Carolina, the futon was very comphortable, and I was asleep within minutes. Another role that South Carolina played in my life was my brother moving there, my brother always played a very important role in my life he played an even bigger one on his moving to South Carolina, it gave me another reason to look forward to our trips there. But all trips to South Carolina, weren't exciting. One time I had to go to South Carolina for a family funeral, where my Uncle Thomas died, only two weeks later we reappered to go to my aunt's funeral. February of 2004 was a sad month for my family. In conclusion however, South Carolina is one of the most important parts of my life.
School Writing Project. :o
