Writer's Workshop Thursday: Road Trip!

The following prompt comes from Mama Kat's Losin' It Writer's Workshop. Please visit her site and join in the fun!

"Share a memorable road trip story!"

I think that it was the summer that I turned eight years old, my aunt and cousins came from Virginia to visit us in South Carolina. My aunt had two boys and two girls just like my mama had, with the boys in both cases being in the middle.

My mama has an album full of pictures, but I don't really remember much about the actual visit. However, I do remember parts of the trip to take them back up to Virginia.

Three adults, eight children, one 1960-something Plymouth, and miles of road ahead of us. What possibly could go wrong, right?

We were packed in that car anywhere that they could fit us. I was one of the two assigned to ride the trip in the floorboard because there was no room for another booty in the seat. OK, no problem. Everyone wants to sniff other peoples' gas-station, public bathroom walking, stinky feet for infinity. Or fourteen hours, which feels like an eternity when you're seven-almost-eight. It was the weekend of my birthday.

We pulled over onto the side of the highway to have a picnic lunch. We all know that it is every parent's dream come true to entertain eight kids on the side of the interstate wondering which one is going to escape and become a pancake under a Mack truck. Thankfully, none of us did.

The most memorable part of the trip (for me) happened after the aforementioned picnic. We loaded back up in the car. I remember my oldest cousin asking "is everybody ready?" Thinking that I was as ready as I'd ever be, I said yes. She closed the car door. It was then that I realized my answer should have been "NO!"

You guessed it, my foot was in the door, more specifically, my big toe. And it was even bigger after that. I don't remember anything about the rest of the drive after that, at least not anything beyond extreme pain. I don't even remember if my boo-boo garnered me a place on the seat rather than the floor.

The next thing that I remember is being at the beach, hobbling around, but wanting to go into the water. I remember my daddy carrying me out into the water so that I could feel the water on my feet. My toe was huge and blue and green and hurting.

An emergency room visit wasn't part of our landing in Virginia. We went to our own hospital back in South Carolina after we got back home. It had something to do with daddy's insurance coverage. After having the hospital x-ray technician confusing my big toe for a car's gear stick, I would have rather foregone the whole hospital visit. It wasn't pleasant. There was more screaming and I'm sure yet another "uncooperative patient" notation on my medical record.

All this and it was only cracked. Not some major compound fracture or something really cool enough to get a cast. Just a crack.

So, that is one of my most memorable road trips. What about you?