When I ponder about the word travel I think long distance or out of the country. Money in my family has always been rather tight. I have always dreamt of going to the Azores. That’s where my dad was born, he moved here when he was only nine years old. He has told me so much about the islands and I still have family that lives there that I would love to meet. I am only seventeen and I know I still have a lot of time to save up for my dream trip.
Since we don’t have the money to travel far my parents invested all their savings into a used travel trailer. It’s the closest I’ve got to traveled, but I will consider it camping rather than traveling. This was our first travel trailer so we honestly had no idea what was needed on a trip. The first weekend we had the trailer my parents were destined to take it out. The date was June 23, 2008 we were on our way to Lake McClure. We had never really been anywhere before this. As soon as we arrived at our site we were all stoked to get out of the truck and explore. Like I said this was only our first time with this new trailer, I have an older brother and younger sister and we all remember this trip like it was yesterday.
The reason we remember this trip so vividly is because of what happened to me. My dad had just backed the trailer into our site; he had unhooked the trailer and pulled the truck up next to it. My mom asked me to go into the trailer and open all the windows, because by the time we were ready to go in we didn’t want it to be all hot and stuffy in the trailer. I stepped into the trailer and headed towards the front window, I had just unlatched the window when suddenly I felt the trailer start to roll. Let me tell you it was a feeling I will never forget. I thought I was about to lose my life. It wouldn’t have been too bad beside the fact that behind the trailer was a very steep hill that leads down to the lake. I couldn’t have been any quicker to get out of there, while the trailer was in motion I jumped out of the door. As soon as I got out the trailer stopped moving.
Turns out my dad asked my brother to lower the trailer and put the tire blocks down, which are supposed to prevent the possibilities of rolling. He decided he had better things to do. I was sitting outside the trailer hysterical and my brother was off looking for lizards. When he came back and found out what happened he was practically rolling on the ground laughing so hard he almost had tears.
My lesson learned from our first ever trip was to never be the first person to get in the trailer when we arrive at our destination. Thank goodness the trailer didn’t roll off the cliff because now traveling is one of our favorite hobbies. Since then we have got much better at the whole trailer situation. My dad knows now not to ask my brother to do the most important job, he now does it himself to assure our family that the trailer will be sturdy, and our family will be safe.
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