Vacations always put him in a good mood

The best part of my summer vacation was the afternoon when the man put our Lumina van on his truck on the Garden State Parkway in New Jersey and rode us to a gas station.

It was cool. It was hot, I mean, but the ride was cool. They tilted our van backwards and pulled it up on top of the truck. It was like being in a rocketship. There were lights blinking all over.

We sat in there — me, Mom, Dad and my sister Kate — and it was just like we were driving only we weren’t. We were just riding on top of the truck.

This was when we were on our way home. It was the second time they towed our car off the Garden State Parkway on the same vacation!

The first time was when we were almost to Long Beach Island. That’s where we were going for vacation.

I never knew Dad’s car had so many lights on the dashboard! They all went on at the same time when we were driving and then the van just stopped.

But the first time wasn’t as good because when they took the van that time we just took out my bags, Kate’s bags, Mom’s bags, Dad’s bags, tennis racquets, chairs and everything else we had in the van and put it all on the grass next to the Garden State Parkway and the man with the tattoos put the van empty up on top of his truck and drove it away.

Kate didn’t mind. She opened a chair and sat and read while all the cars went vrrooom when they drove by us.

Our friend Debbie came and picked us up from Long Beach Island.

I learned on my summer vacation that a thing called an alternator is what makes your car go.

It can also make your car stop.

Dad bought a new one when our van stopped by itself the first time.

I learned on my vacation that you should probably keep two or three of them in your trunk because when our van stopped by itself the second time, Dad bought another alternator.

He said he’s going to sue somebody. I don’t know exactly what that means except I think it means we’re going to be rich.

We had a good time at Long Beach Island. It was just getting there and getting home that was exciting.

Like when we were coming home after we got our second new alternator and the lights were still blinking on Dad’s dashboard.

We spent lots of time at the Tappan Zee Bridge. The bridge must be very strong because it could hold so many cars that you couldn’t see where they began or where they ended.

It was hot. The car next to us had smoke coming up from the front of it.

Mom said to Dad that she could jump right off this bridge.

Dad said to Mom, “Who’s stopping you?”

Mom doesn’t have a bathing suit on so why does she want to jump into the water?

When we got home, Dad got out of the van and kissed the driveway. Go figure.

After we got home on Saturday night, we were going to have a cookout with Grandma Daly and Grandma Tierney. It started off fine. Then it got cloudy. It started to rain. Dad’s charcoal fire went out.

Mom said she’d cook the food on the stove. Everybody said, “No problem.”

Then there was thunder and lightning and the lights went out.

I like it when the lights go out because we light candles. But we don’t have enough candles to cook on, Dad said.

Our stove is electric so we couldn’t cook on that, either.

Grandma Daly has a gas grill so we went there. There were no lights anywhere, so we lit candles there, too.

Dad put up a beach umbrella near the grill to keep the rain off him and the food.

Iwas sitting on the screen porch and I could see him standing at the grill out on Grandma’s deck. Then it started raining so hard and got so windy I couldn’t see him anymore.

But that was OK because I could hear him yelling things like “WHAT TIME DO WE DOCK?” and “BRING ’ ER HARD TO STARBOARD, MATEYS!”

Vacations always put him in a good mood.