Most Memorable Vacation

Here's the latest Scrapdango Blog Challenge from Tara "I would like you to blog about your most memorable vacation memory. Was it the destination? Someone you met? Something you saw? Something you ate or did for the first time? What was it?"

By far I would have to say the Oklahoma trip my brothers, parents and I took over 35 years ago. I was 15 years old at the time. My dad is notorious for getting lost on trips. It has nothing to do with senility or anything like that. He has no real sense of direction although he is quite intelligent and was a very good driver. (He's now almost 87 and doesn't drive anymore by his own choice.) However, this one particular trip was a memorable one for each and every one of us three kids.
My dad was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. He had moved away from there when he was 7 and hadn't been back. So he decided that we were going to drive and camp our way out there and possibly go farther west if we had time. We stopped in St. Louis on the way out and saw the gateway arch (INCREDIBLE) and the St. Louis Zoo which we all really enjoyed tremendously. There was even a really nice campground there too! And the camp store had this REALLY cute guy working in it. Of course, my dad embarrassed me so badly in front of this kid that I wouldn't go back in the store, but that's another story. (Along with all the others that we all share and remember about this particular trip. More than the normal trip ever had!)
Anyway, my poor dad will NEVER EVER live this trip down as long as one of my brothers or I are alive! We made it out to Oklahoma City. We found the old homestead place and started to talk about the rest of our trip. Dad insisted it was Thursday as he proceeded to get lost finding our way back to the campground. Mom, my brothers and I all insisted that it wasn't Thursday, but really Wednesday. Dad wouldn't hear of it. He wouldn't look at a newspaper or anything. Now remember there weren't GPS or cellphones or anything like that at the time so we couldn't prove to him that he was wrong. So the next morning we packed up our camping gear and off we go back east. We were all the way back to St. Louis before he realized we were right and he was wrong!!!! He had lost an entire day!!! This was AFTER he had embarrassed us all so badly at the Capitol building tour that we wanted to just escape! (Another story here too....)
Well, it turned out to be okay because we went back to the St. Louis Zoo and my brother was able to meet his idol Marlin Perkins of Wild Kingdom fame. Mr. Perkins was quite sweet and spent several minutes talking to us. And my brother was just soooo excited!
Then there was the tornado threat in Kansas on the way home. We saw the weather turning nasty and decided to break camp early and eat breakfast on the road. An hour after we left, we heard on the radio that a tornado had hit the very campground where we had stayed and dropped grapefruit sized hail!!!! Our Nimrod camper would have been destroyed!
So you see, not one of my two brothers or my mother or I will EVER let daddy live that trip down! And we were all sure to tell everyone at their 60th anniversary party last year during the toasts! ;) Revenge is very sweet you know. At least we all have had some really good laughs out of the whole experience.