Our theme for the month of October is “states.”
st for main events in my life but also for random details that shouldn’t hold any value.
I can remember what building we were driving past when Mom and I jammed out to Enrique Iglesias’s “I Like It.” I remember the time when I was three or four and threw up on all the kids’ shoes on my babysitter’s front doormat, much to her horror.
So when I think about the vacation my family took to Nebraska when I was ten, a blur of random images run through my mind. A hotel building emerging from the highway, bright blond hair and excessive makeup, eating mediocre tacos at the hotel restaurant, and Jerod’s baseball teammate loudly singing a musical number in our hotel room.
First, I want to say that the words “vacation” and “Nebraska” should never belong in the same sentence. But since my brother’s travel baseball team had a tournament there, my parents decided that we’d make a trip out of it.
We were on the highway, in that final stretch of the trip when you’re itching to get out of the car and collapse onto a freshly made hotel bed. From the road, my parents pointed out how close our hotel was. The tall building in front of me didn’t feel so far away now that I could see it. I stared at it in anticipation as we inched closer.
Then a loud thud cut through my excitement, and we lurched forward. My brother Jerod jumped, startled out of his nap. In the backseat, my younger sisters turned to each other and screamed, a long, simultaneous cry that sounded straight out of a Disney Channel original.
Mom was wincing, touching her neck; she had jerked violently when the car hit us from behind.
I could still see the hotel when we stopped and the lady from the other car came up to our window, apologizing frantically. She was a twentysomething blonde who looked like she hadn’t grown past her time as a popular high school cheerleader.
“And she was all, ‘Oh, I’m like, so sorry!’” Mom would say in the future, whenever she told this story, laying the Valley girl voice on thick. “I’m telling you, she was probably on the way to the mall.” To really drive home the early 2010s of it all, I’m fifty percent sure her bright blonde hair was held up by a Bumpit.
Eventually, we got to the hotel, the minivan now boasting a large crater in the back. My youngest sister, Chelsea, was still in disbelief that the woman who had derailed the beginning of our vacation shared her name.
We joined the other baseball families at the hotel restaurant, and Mom recounted our harrowing arrival over inauthentic Mexican food.
Mom got it the hardest, though. The impact from the crash had given her whiplash, so we spent part of our vacation waiting for Mom outside the doctor’s.
Between Mom’s sudden injury and Jerod’s many baseball games, we managed to have fun. Dad gave us a tour of his alma mater, Creighton, and he introduced us to a place that had the best burgers with thick, juicy beef patties. We enjoyed the hotel pool and horsed around with Jerod’s baseball teammates. This is where the aforementioned musical number singing took place.
My dad’s sister even came out from Missouri with her family, which culminated in my uncle making a big deal out of ~subtly~ sliding a painkiller into her palm.
I don’t remember every place we visited or how many games Jerod’s team won or lost. The dramatic start to our trip is the first thing that comes to my mind when I think of Nebraska, which is no surprise. But a bunch of random images surrounding that crash are the reason I can’t help but smile when thinking of that day. From the way our hotel seemed to tease me as we were stalled on the highway to the raw anger my sister felt at sharing a name with the woman who started our vacation off with a bang.
It’s images like these that make me thankful for my sharp memory.
Liana Hirner graduated from Calvin in 2024 with a bachelor’s in writing. She currently lives in her hometown of Aurora, Illinois and works full-time in a warehouse filled with books waiting to be sorted. Writing is her first love, followed swiftly by lattes and dark chocolate.
