It was four o clock in the morning and there were four of us stuffed into our small Grand Am. All I could think about was how excited I was. We all couldn’t stop talking, which was odd considering the time. We were all so pumped and couldn’t stop talking about it! This day had finally come! This attitude lasted for about a half an hour until Jenna, my mom, and I crashed.
My dad woke us up when we got in South Dakota and said, “We’re stoppin’!”
â–º SEMI FINALIST 2012 TEEN TRAVEL WRITING SCHOLARSHIP
This was the beginning of our trip to Missouri. Why would we want to go to hot, humid, stinky Missouri in the middle of July? We had a pretty good reason. My brother, Sean, was graduating from basic training at Fort Leonard Wood, so we decided to go watch his graduation and make a vacation out of it. Don’t get me wrong, it was a very fun time. There were just a few aspects that made it kind of suck.
First of all, have you ever driven to Missouri from North Dakota? Holy Moly, that’s a long drive. We should have just flown. We drove all the way to Missouri in our itty bitty car with absolutely no leg room. I don’t know how many times that my mom told me to quit jabbing my knees in her back. It was a horrible drive, but it was still fun because it was vacation.
Once we got to Missouri, we checked into our hotel. I will never forget that hotel. You see, my mom is a stickler with money, so she tried to find the cheapest, nicest hotel there was that was located near Fort Leonard Wood. She found The Econo Lodge. We checked into The Econo Lodge and opened our room door and a gust of smoky air flew out. It was a non-smoking room, but somehow stank of smoke. I took a shower and we all got cleaned up. I went to my bag to get some deodorant. As I opened it up I noticed that it was pretty warm from the car ride, but I didn’t think anything of it. When I opened it up it splattered everywhere and it was all soupy. I went and got one of the wash clothes and wiped it up. I looked at the rag and it was BLACK. Did they every clean their carpets? Probably not. I showed everyone and we were all disgusted. Another funny story about our hotel was when Sean came to hang out for a while and we were all going to go swimming. When we came back in, Jenna went on her laptop and Sean went in the little crack in between the wall and the bed and he leaned his butt on it. They browsed the web for a while and when Sean got up he said,
“I broke the wall!” It was so hilarious and we all laughed our heads off. The wall was so moldy that leaning against the wall left an indention! My mom learned never to be stingy when it comes to hotel rooms. The only other part about staying in Missouri was the temperature. Never go to Missouri in the middle of July! It was so hot that even when you wore shorts and a tank top you would sweat.
Despite the humidity and the hotel room, our trip to Missouri was very fun. When I look back to that hotel room I just chuckle to myself. I will never forget my Misery in Missouri.
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