Author's Note: In this story, I inserted a lot of dialog to enhance the voice of the story. This story talks about what I did before I went on my trip to Pennsylvania.
A Trip of a Lifetime
“Come on clock, move faster!” I said to myself. It was 10:40a.m. 5 more minutes until school is out for the summer. 10:41 came around. 10:42, 10:43, 10:44 and then suddenly, at 10:45a.m., DING!!! School’s out!! I rushed out of the school doors so excited that summer vacation was finally here. Once I got outside, I could feel the warmth of summer! I said goodbye to all of my friends and then I charged to the High School parking lot where my sister was waiting for me. I hopped in her car and we drove home. I was so excited that school was out, that I didn’t fall asleep that night.
I woke up the next morning, so anxious to talk to my parents about where we are going for vacation this year. Every year my family and I go on vacation to either a sightseeing area or an amusement park. “Good morning, mother and father,” I said to my parents. “Well, sounds like Sally Sunshine is in a good mood.” my mom said. “Well, summer kind of just kicked me right in the face and now I’m a whole new person!” My parents looked at me like I had just won a Grammy Award. “I think I know why she’s in a good mood honey,” my dad said. “Why do you think she’s in a good mood?” My mom looked at my dad like he just had a light bulb stuffed into his brain. My heart was pounding and I was hoping that he would guess correctly. “She’s in such a good mood because she’s excited to do house work when she’s home alone!” I couldn’t believe it. I was getting so excited to talk about vacation and relaxing at home, and the next thing I know, I’m doing housework when I’m home alone. “No. Think bigger. Like ‘traveling’ kind of bigger.” I said. “Oh, I got it. You’re ecstatic to go to summer school next week!” Wow, either my parents are hiding something from me, or they are really bad guessers. “Allison, we are just kidding with you. We know you are excited to talk about vacation. We’re not that stupid.” That’s when I felt like I was going to pass out. We were going on a vacation. A vacation of a lifetime.
The next morning, I woke up and heard the birds chirping. It was the first day of summer. I got out of bed and went into my living room and I didn’t see anyone besides a note on my TV that read:
Allison,
Gone for a bike ride. Be back soon!
Love,
Mom and Dad
9:20a.m.
Sweet! I had the house all to myself. I also found another part of the note on the back. It read:
P.S. Angela went to her swim meet. She will be back soon.
Love,
Mom and Dad. Again.
Oh yeah! I forgot that Angela had her first swim meet today. After I read the note, I turned around and sat on my couch, relaxing and watching TV and petting my dog, and all of a sudden, I hear a screaming noise so I got up, looked around and I didn’t see anything. But then I realized, it was my stomach. So I got up and went to my pantry when I saw another note. It read:
Allison,
You must do these chores while we are gone:
· Vacuum your room and the living room
· Empty the dishwasher
· Clean the downstairs bathroom
· Pick up the walnuts
Love,
Mom and Dad
Unbelievable. My first day of summer and they are making me do chores. I just wanted to talk to them about vacation. All of a sudden I hear someone walking through the door. It was my mom and dad coming back from their bike ride. “Hey did you do your chores yet?” My mom said. “I just got your note. But I want to-“ “Yes I know you want to talk about vacation this year. So, let’s talk about it.” I got so excited, that I charged to the couch and couldn’t wait until I found out where we were going this year. “Ok, do you have any suggestions in mind?” Immediately I said “Ohio. Cedar Point.” Then my heart dropped like an anchor because my parents said no. But I knew that they would say no. “Well, I have one suggestion in mind that we could look into.” My dad said. “What’s your suggestion?” I said. “Well, I was looking at the map and I thought, let’s go to Pennsylvania. We could visit Philadelphia, the Liberty Bell, Independence Hall and we could also go to Gettysburg, the actual battlefield. We could stay in a Country Inn and Suites hotel and go to Hershey.” I was speechless. “I love it. Allison, what do you think?” There was a moment of silence and then I said, “I love that idea! It’s brilliant! Let’s go on the website right now!” So I bolted into my computer room, went online and started looking at what was going to be the best vacation ever.
When my sister got home from her swim meet, she was really excited because her team had gotten 1st place. Right when she walked through the door, I went up to her and said, “Guess where we are going for vacation?” My sister looked at me, startled because I charged up to her and I didn’t even give her a second to breathe when she entered the door. “Ok miss happy girl. Where are we going?” My heart was pounding so hard that I thought she could hear it and then I shouted it out. “We’re going to Pennsylvania!” My sister’s face went from a grin to a gigantic smile. We were both so excited that we couldn’t wait until we left.
Every Friday, Saturday and Sunday, my family and I always go out to dinner. That day, we went to a new restaurant called La Fuente. While we were there, we discussed what we were going to do with my 2 year old dog Percy because he can’t be home alone by himself for a whole vacation. My mom called my aunt and asked if my cousins wanted to watch him while we were gone. They agreed, so now we had to figure out when we were going to leave. “Why don’t we leave somewhere in June, let’s say around my birthday?” I said. “No, but nice try. I was thinking in the beginning of July.” My mom said. “That’s good but it’s going to be really hot, otherwise, I like it.” I said. “I won’t be hot. Let’s book it for July 6th-13th.” After the discussion was over, I got really excited. My parents went online and booked our trip.
1 month had passed and we had 2 weeks before we left for vacation. I started to get my stuff packed up early because I wanted to leave at once. My sister and I love leaving really early in the morning, like 3:30, 4:00 in the morning. “Now the last thing that we have to decide on it what time we are going to be leaving. It’s going to be taking us a good 16 hours to get to Pennsylvania if we drive.” My dad said. My sister and I looked at each other, exchanged some looks, and shouted out together, “4:00a.m.!” My parents looked at us, in shock because we blurted it out so fast. “We love getting up really early to go on vacation and if it takes 16 hours to get there, then we would arrive around dinner time.” My sister said. My parents were a little iffy about it. “We’ll think about it. In the meantime, figure out what items you want to bring during the drive.” My parents gave us a little smile and walked away.
There was only 1 week left before the big day came. I went up to my sister and asked what we were going to bring. “Why don’t we bring the playstation. It’ll be better than the Wii because with the Wii we can’t move around in the car,” I said. “Yeah, but with the Wii, we can play Mario Cart,” my sister said. “True, but that’s about the only thing that we can do,” I said. There was a moment of pause and silence. “Yeah, let’s bring the playstation,” my sister said. After about 4 hours of getting things together, we were ready start packing up our clothes. Everyday that went by, I got more and more and more excited. Our trip was about to begin.
“6 days left,” I said to myself. I went into my basement and grabbed a large, red suitcase to start packing up my clothes. “Percy!” I called to my dog. “Hi buddy! I’m going to miss you so much during our vacation,” I said. “You’ll be in great hands, Percy.” My sister had came into my bedroom and we were both giving my dog big kisses. “Come on Allison, we need to get the items that we are going to be using in the car ready.” My sister and I went to the basement and my dog followed. We got everything that we wanted and put them into some duffle bags and brought them upstairs. “Oh, I can’t wait until we go to Pennsylvania. We’re going to see the Liberty Bell, Independence Hall, Gettysburg, Hershey. I’m getting so excited, I won’t be able to fall asleep tonight!” I said.
There were only a couple days left. I couldn’t wait any longer. I just couldn’t. My parents had gone to the grocery store to get some food for the trip. While they were gone, I continued to pack up my clothes and items for the trip. I wanted to leave the house right away and go to Pennsylvania. I then hear a call from my parents. “Hello?” I said. “Allison, can you please get all of Percy’s things together, we are taking him over to our cousins tomorrow night. Make sure you have his bell and a couple of toys along with the Beggin’ Strips,” my mom said. “Sure mom. Bye,” I said. “Love you. Bye.” And we hung up. So I did what my parents told me to do and got all of his things together and put them in his kennel.
It was the big day. I had set my alarm for 4 in the morning. I woke up, got breakfast and finished packing my things. “Hurry up girls! It gets pretty busy around this hour,” my mom said. I was running all over the house to make sure I got everything. We set all of our stuff next to my front door and loaded them in the car. I closed my bedroom door and said to myself, “Ok, do I have everything?” I checked myself off when my mom walked in the room. “We are leaving in 15 minutes,” my mom said to me. “Ok but wait, can you please make sure I have everything?” “Do you have your 8 pairs of clothes, shoes, toothbrush toothpaste and the items to bring into the car?” “Yes I do.” “Ok, then your good to go. Go put your stuff in the car,” my mom said. I zipped up my bags, looked back at my room and shut my light off. I loaded my things into the car and then went up front to set up the little TV’s and the playstation. “Alright family! Let’s get on the road. Come on Percy, in the car!” We then loaded all of Percy’s stuff into the car and closed the trunk. My heart was pounding 10x faster than usual. I was so excited that we were finally headed to Pennsylvania.
We arrived at my cousins house and walked through the door at 4:30 in the morning. My cousin came to the door and greeted us. She took Percy’s kennel and set it in her room. My family and I said our goodbyes to Percy and left. Finally, we were headed to what would be, the trip of a lifetime.
By: Allison Andes Fall D.W.A.
Some pictures from my trip:
I was also at the Eastern State Penitentiary, Hershey Park, Gettysburg, Philadelphia, Liberty Bell, Independence Hall, Congress Hall. There was so much to see that this was the Best Vacation Ever!!!
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