Tales of a Mother/Daughter Vacation

Girls Not Gone Wild in the Least

In previous posts, I've discussed some of the less than finer trips my Family took when I was a child.  Today, I'd like to discuss my first "real" vacation adventure, where chaos still ensued.  As the saying goes, you can take the family out of the trailer park, but you can't take the trailer park out of the family.

 

The first time I ever was on an airplane was when I was 16 years old.  My Mom and I decided we were going to take a mother/daughter trip to Cancun, Mexico, leaving my Father and brother in the dust.  A 6 day/7 night all-inclusive resort vacation.  Cancun was a sensible choice in a few ways, it was a huge tourist town, it wasn't a long flight ride, and didn't require a passport.  It was an insensible choice in two ways:  We decided to go in August and we had no idea what the hell we were doing.
 

As all Family vacations began, we woke at the crack of dawn and my Dad drove my mother and I to Newark International Airport.  We were wrecks.  My mother had never flown before either, and we both really didn't know what to expect.  It's an important fact to note, that the ladies in the family don't exactly handle stress as well as we should.  For example, Mom panics and talks incessantly and I feel nauseous, vomit and require silence.  Ahhh!  Let the adventure begin!

 

We boarded the plane for what we were certain was impending doom, and found our seats.  My mother chatted the entire length of the plane, while we loaded our carry-ons in the overhead bins, and as we took our seats.  She chatted while I clung to the air-sick bag.  She chatted while I held my head in my hands.  She chatted while I reasoned with myself not to make a run for the Exit door.  I remember looking at my Mom, in my nauseated state, and asking her to please put a cork in it.  I'm sure it wasn't said that nicely, and I'm sure there was a significant amount of eye rolling going on.  It didn't matter.  I dealt with my stress one way, she another.  Never the twain shall meet.

 

Fully boarded, the "escape" exits sealed off, we started our taxiing to the runway. It was at this time that the prescribed medication my Mom had taken at the gate began to take effect.  Now, my Mom is a very thin woman.  Tall and lanky, she's kind of like Olive Oil on a diet.  We took off and she was still chatting, but her ability to articulate was...well...slipping.  I had asked her earlier if I could take 1/2 of her medication because I was freaking out and she emphatically replied "Absolutely NOT!".  As she began to suck her thumb and cuddle up to the stranger's shoulder though, I surmised I might have found my "in".  Mom was gorked, she and I will freely admit.  I took advantage of this when I asked a second time if I could take 1/2.  She looked at me with watery eyes and a slightly droopy smile on her face and said "Suuuure!".  Wasting no time, I took a 1/2 and we both woke up when we landed.  I believe my Mom also found a phone number scrawled on a piece of paper in her lap - belonging to the man whom she had cuddled up to - but she'll never admit it.

 

 

Exiting the airplane we were greeted with arrows directing us to baggage claim.  We then waited on the strangest line I've ever stood in.  Back in the day, Cancun "customs" was a traffic light.  Each passenger would go up and press the button on the traffic signal, if the light flashed "Green", you went past the officials, luggage in tow and found a taxi.  If the light flashed "Red", you stopped and had the officials go through each of your bags.  The finest form of counter-terrorism I've ever seen before of since.  My Mom pushed me forward, saying I had better luck.  We got a green light, and searched for the Hotel Shuttle.

 

As complete travel novices, we had no idea that Cancun was the center of all things alcoholic.  We boarded the shuttle and were handed beers, which my Mother promptly took out of our hands and gave back.  We took our seats and were just in awe.  I remember thinking, "I'm coming back here for Spring Break", and then "This might not be the place to go with your Mom."

 

The shuttle dropped us off at the Hotel, we checked in and took stock of our situation.  OK.  We're here.  What do we do now?  We had booked an all-inclusive resort, so meals and drinks weren't going to be a problem.  But outside of eating and drinking, what to do, what to do?  Being New Jersey women, we obviously headed to the mall.  El Flamingo Plaza.

 

The El Flamingo was a  short walk away for the hotel and was on the opposite side of the street.  While the hotel was on the ocean, the El Flamingo was on the lagoon.  Little did we know that we would be spending countless hours at the El Flamingo.  We were novice travellers and kept our circle very small.

 

During the days we stayed by one of the many pools, visited the mall and went to (what turned out to be) our greatest saving grace, the "Chac Mool Deli". The Chac Mool was the only place we could find that was reasonably air conditioned, had the coolest drinks (as nothing was actually cold) and carried grape juice for when the ever present "Mexican Nausea" resurfaced.
 

Some of the highlights/lowlights of the trip included:

• Booking a trip to the Mayan Ruins - We decided we were going to take a bus tour to the Mayan ruins to get some culture.  Unfortunately, about 10 minutes en route, I thought I was going to toss my cookies, and my Mom went up to the tour guide and said we needed to get off the bus.  He said we couldn't stop.  She said he could.  He said we wouldn't get our money back.  She said she didn't care.  The bus pulled over and we stepped off, without the least bit of embarrassment.  We were walking back to the hotel when my mother said, "Do not turn around."  So I, of course, turned around.  Stretching the entire length of the lagoon walkway, the biggest lizard-ish looking thing was sunning itself in the place we had just passed.  I'm still convinced it was a dragon.

• Chicken Fingers, Please - On one of our many jaunts to the El Flamingo, my Mom and I went to a fast food chicken joint.  Mom, trying to "blend in" to Cancun culture, scoured her brain to find the Spanish word for "Chicken Fingers".  As she hemmed and hawed and wiggled her digits in front of the exasperated cashier, he finally said "You'd like Chicken Fingers?"  Dejected, she said yes, and a medium mashed potatoes with gravy.  Back at our hotel room, we realized that we had no utensils, so we ate the mashed potatoes with the Pepto-Bismol measuring cap that we had bought at....Yes.  The Chac Mool Deli.

• Burning Legs and Emotional Meltdowns - Laying out by the pool one day, we looked down at my Mom's stick figure legs and saw that she was burning.  Quick thinking ladies that we were, we raced out of the sun, as if she was going to burst in to flames at any second.  We returned to our room, where the bag of ice we had placed in the second sink had already melted, and the sad remains of the Grape Juice label swam dejectedly.  It was at this point that we turned on the movie "Point Break", ate more mashed potatoes with the Pepto Bismol cup, and cried that we wanted to go home, while Patrick Swayze found his perfect storm.

By day 5, we were ready to go.  Resorting to eating fast food out of medicinal caps didn't help matters, either.  Our return flight back was delayed for hours, and we received more information from Dad in New Jersey, than we did from the actual airport.

We were so happy to be going home, that no prescription medications were even necessary for the airplane ride back.  We had learned a lot on this trip, and we were happy we took it, but we were like fish out of water.  We did agree, however, that this beat the bus tour to Cape Cod/Martha's Vineyard, where our backseat neighbors were an older married couple.  A trip where the wife pointed out every sign and bridge from NJ to MA.  Do you know how many signs and bridges there are on that route?  8 million.  That's how many. 

My Mom and I have taken a few other trips since that fateful Cancun escapade.  We've learned how to travel together, and we've learned how to travel better.  Nothing will ever beat the first trip to Cancun, though. A true tale of girls not gone wild in the least.

With Love
Lady Butterfly
xoxo