Unexpectedly Amazing

Big, bright, and glamorous is a teenage girls dream. Being the youngest in my family, I never have had much say on what goes on. Always being overpowered by my two head strong older brothers, and sometimes even my shy older sister, eventually gets old. Vacations, especially, were a decision that I was always overpowered on, and having such different interests than my brothers, made the trips not all that enjoyable. For years I sat there without many complaints, hoping that one day we would be able to do something I wanted to do, so when both my brothers had moved out and were involved in different jobs and schooling that tied them up for the summer, it was finally my turn to choose a vacation for my parents, sister, and me.

New York City, a place I had visualized and dreamed of since I was a tiny girl, was my choice. My sister loved the idea just as much as I did, and my parents were eager to oblige. The plans started for a trip the next summer. We would hop on a plane in the middle of July, which was still a long ways away since it was only October, and spend a glorious week in the Big Apple.

Unfortunately, these plans got destroyed when my brother proposed to his girlfriend that December and decided on a May wedding, only five months away. Of course I was extremely happy for them, but what was upsetting was when my parent sat me and my sister down and told us that with the expenses of the wedding we would not be able to fly to New York. Devastated, my sister and I started getting angry, explaining to my parents that we had our plans first and that this whole situation wasn’t fair. While we were rambling about how horrible our lives are, my parents proposed an idea, we drive across the country and make our final destination New York. When they said that, my sister and I started freaking out. Driving sounded like torture, and it would take a bazillion hours to drive to New York. We pouted for a week or so and then finally came to our senses. If we wanted to go to New York, then this would be the only way.

As we started figuring out exactly what we were going to do on this trip, I started to get really excited. I was amazed at all we would be able to just because we were driving. Eventually I realized that this way of traveling would be just as much, if not more, fun.

July came and it was no doubt the best vacation I had ever been on. We traveled through 17 different states, staying in about 10 different hotels, and seeing more of this great country then I could ever dream of.

We saw some amazing things. We visited Notre Dame University, some of my religion’s church history sites, a boardwalk fair in Chicago (where we also ate a world famous Superdawg), and a cute little Amish town in Ohio. Niagara Falls was something I’ll never forget. Then it was onto the Freedom trail in Boston, and the Basketball Hall of Fame. Eventually we made it to the utterly magnificent New York City, where we saw a Broadway play, climbed to the crown of the Statue of Liberty, and took a bike ride through central park. On our way home from New York we stopped at a thrilling six flags. Overall it was the best vacation ever.