Hellcation

I was so excited thinking I'd finally coined a term of my own, but after Googling "hellcation" it seems I'm not the first person whose vacation has gone completely to shit.

Before I go into Phase II of our Hellcation, here's a little side story.  For a long while I've been forgetting to mention my 4th fear when the topic comes up.  Zombies, cockroaches, going crazy and having car problems.  Whenever a car ceases to function properly, I immediately fear it is going to blow up.  This fear goes wayyy back to when I was a small child.  Throughout my childhood I made dozens of trips to East Texas with my grandparents.  8 out of 10 times we'd take the back roads and 8 out of 10 times we'd have car problems that always resulted in someone having to drive out to the middle of nowhere to pick us up.  When I got old enough to make the trip on my own, I always knew to never take the "jinxed route".  One of those times, I was about 8 or 9 I believe, we were coming home and the van caught on fire.  I have no idea what the problem was, I just remember my grandmother telling me to run in case the van exploded.  So to this day, everytime I experience car problems I want to run away to avoid explosion.  This is difficult, as often times during "car problems" you need someone to start the car while the other person is under the hood.  I can only be that person if there is absolutely no one else around (including strangers).

So moving on.  Chris and I left on Friday for East Texas.  When planning our trip the "jinxed route" briefly crossed my mind, but only for a moment.  As we were driving out of Dayton we passed a spot where my grandmother and I had broken down long ago.  I started to say something, then quickly changed my mind.  Chris prodded me and I said "I'll tell you later.  But let it go for now", as I didn't want to "jinx" us.  We drove for about an hour and a half through sheer nothingness (we couldn't even find a Dairy Queen) and I kept thinking "this would be a sucky place to break down."  Then suddenly, we lost power.  Our gauges died, our radio died, our a/c died.  I panicked, Chris called our mechanic and we rolled into a Walmart as our car died a slow death.  Luckily, our car died in Woodville, the most populated place we'd been through since leaving Baytown.  Luckily, we made it to a Walmart.  Luckily, my dad and cousin were only 45 minutes from us.  Luckily, my dad knows cars.  Luckily, we were not stranded out in the heat with our heat-sensitive toddler.  But still I freaked.  Still I cried.  Still I cursed family tradition and that f'n "jinxed route".

My dad arrived 45 minutes later, bought us a battery and assured us we could make it to the ranch.  I drove his truck with all the kids while he and Chris drove the car with no a/c (poor Chris had a serious sunburn and was miserable).  Luckily we made it to the house.  We turned off the car and let it sit for awhile.  Then it started right back up.  No problems.  Dad said to repeat what we had done when the car started to die, so I plugged in my iPhone and the car immediately died.  After my father and his friend finished with the iPhone jokes, it was decided the alternator was dead.  We luckily found a mechanic who would replace it on a Saturday (while my father reminded me that if I "drove a truck he could do it and save some money") and shelled out $380 of money we did not have to fix the car.  Hardcore suck.

We were lucky in many ways.  I say that as a general optimist.  But as a hardcore realist, this was the worst "vacation" I've ever had in my life.  It cost money it wasn't supposed to cost.  It was full of strife and frustration.  It was hot.  It was cramped.  It was crowded.  It was the anti-vacation, ie: a hellcation.  If I never go east again, not a soul could blame me.