Learning to just go with it

Last month my family went on a trip to Colorado. We were safe and wore masks everywhere, and originally we were just going to stay in a cabin for a few days. But as the trip went on, nothing went as planned. It seemed as if it was one thing after another that was going wrong. We had to change our plans time and time again, yet we still managed to have fun.

    Something you should know before we get into this is that my family has a travel curse. My aunt started it, and it’s been passed down ever since. When she went to Las Vegas, the only blizzard in the city’s history happened. When she was at Hershy’s Park the largest flood in the county’s history happened. She was at Disney World during a hurricane, and when we went to Universal Orlando the Air Conditioning in our hotel broke during humid Florida summer. When we went to St. Louis, not only did I get Strep Throat, but it was cold and ended up snowing the day we wanted to explore. So it wasn’t a surprise when our trip to Estes Park went south real quick, but it was by far the worst case of the curse we’ve had yet. 

    So first our cabin burnt down. We were driving up to go there and we noticed a police barricade blocking our way, and when we asked they informed us that there were wildfires and it was being evacuated. We were all upset, and when my aunt called to get a refund, they refused to give it to us. We found a rundown hotel and stayed there for the night. Later that day we found out that the fires had spread and we were going to need to leave again. We found our third hotel of the day and went to see the Stanley.

    When we got to the Stanley everything was going great, we explored and at seven o’clock we went on our ghost tour. We were having a blast with the paranormal experiences. About halfway through I tripped down a few stars and felt something pop in my ankle, but ignored it and continued. My ankle started hurting more and more as we went on and by the end, I was limping and in pain, but brushed it off as nothing. Little did I know that I twisted my ankle, and by not letting it heal for the rest of the trip I now have a permanently messed up ankle that pops out of socket almost every day. (Yes, I got it checked out at the doctor’s and they said there’s nothing they can do at this point.) 

    After this, we went and got supper. I’m allergic to a lot of foods and spices, and normally very careful about eating at restaurants, but at this point, it was going on nine and I was tired and hungry. I ordered a burrito bowl and didn’t check for turmeric or cayenne, and had to use my allergy meds. They also put dairy cheese in it when I specifically said to not do that because milk can kill me. So we went back to the hotel and I collapsed onto the pull out immediately.

    At about 8 am a cop knocked on our door and told us to evacuate. We hurriedly packed up our stuff and headed to Denver where we spent the next night. I went to pull my laptop out of my bag and looked up in horror at my aunt. I left my laptop at the hotel. We called the hotel that luckily hadn’t burnt down and they promised to send it back to my house...  for the low price of $150. It was cheaper than a new laptop so we told them to send it and we would deal with the money later. Time jump, the screen was cracked beyond repair when we got home, so after replacing the screen it would have been cheaper to buy a new laptop.

    The last thing that happened was on our way back. The van that we were driving in is pretty old and needed a few repairs, but it had been fine on every other trip so it would be okay on this one, right? Wrong. It broke down in the middle of Kansas. And if you know anything about Kansas, there is nothing but hay there. Luckily we were able to fix it to the point where we could drive it, but we didn’t dare stop. We drove home for six straight hours waiting for disaster to strike, but luckily we made it home.

    Even though this sounds like a horrible trip, looking back on it I find that it was one of the best I’ve been on. When we went to that third hotel, we found elks outside that we could look at. The Stanley was an awesome experience and I was able to walk through it despite being injured. If I hadn’t had that reaction I might have found out about my turmeric allergy somewhere where I didn’t have access to my meds. If I hadn’t forgotten my laptop, I wouldn’t have found out about the bad battery in it and it would have literally exploded. And if we hadn’t broken down there, we wouldn’t have had the great conversations on our way back and the van might have crashed instead of just going a little slower. So in the end, it was all worth it and taught me to just go with the flow.
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-Meg

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