The Great Outdoors

A trip to Universal Studios last Tuesday inspired me to watch The Great Outdoors with John Candy and Dan Aykroyd. I have never seen this movie before. Now, I suppose that to most people this movie would fall under the category of comedy. But let me tell you, when you have a Roman (Aykroyd) in your family, and you've been on vacation with him, this movie hits a little to close to home. Thus, for someone like me, this movie falls under the category of horror.

I think my first, last, and only camping trip with my Uncle Roman will prove to be a good case in point. Although in the movie, Roman shows up unannounced, my Uncle Roman was invited along - on a previously planned camping trip with my family and our family's friends. As a matter of fact, it was our friends idea in the first place.

As most people know, when you reach a campsite, you stake it out and decide as a group how to arrange the camp, set up the tents, and create your weekend community. (You should be cringing right about now.) Yes, my Uncle Roman pulls ahead of the rest of us (refusing to stop for more than a five minute lunch on our six hour drive to Mackinac Island) and arrives at the campground an hour ahead of time. We arrive to find that we have been assigned 3 side by side rectangular campsites, and mu Uncle Roman has his van parked and his giant tent set up smack dab in the middle of the middle camp site. (Reminder: He was invited along and he chose which campsite to use) Due to his set up, we weren't able to set up in a circle, and we had to walk around the van and tent to visit each others sites. If you can't envision it, trust me, it was inconvenient, annoying, and rude.

There were numerous other examples of my delightful Uncle Roman on this trip. His potato hashbrown tomato casserole (that was an unusual shade of pink when he finished with it) that he insisted everyone "try" (and his definition of "try" was about 2 cups full splattered on to a paper plate). His argumentative response to asking him to at least park his van on the outer edge of the camp site. Oh and of course, who can forget the repeated visits we got from our neighbors at the camp ground as they politely, and repeatedly, requested that Uncle Roman turn down his TELEVISION that he had set up in his tent to watch late at night in the middle of the campground.

Ah, those family vacations!