What the Heck Happened?: Tales of Trips, Travails, Traumas, Tours, Triumphs, Transits, Treks, Truths, Traipses, Trip Ups, Tasties, Treasures, and Touristy Tips As Told by “Typical” Traveling Tattletellers

By Robin Dohrman Ayers

For the last umpty years, upon our return from trips/vacations/adventures, our friends have waited with bated breaths to learn what we'd gotten ourselves into after realizing we seemed to be unable to travel without incident. This always leads to recalls from us, often with wild hand gestures. They have respectfully allowed us to go on and on about what we'd gotten ourselves into most recently. Now, maybe our friends were just being nice, but they have been nonetheless reinforcing these little humorous slices off the norm. In and of themselves individually, no one of these tales is terribly exciting. However, in a collection, there certainly was plenty of material from which to draw!

To legitimize the stories, I felt they intimated teaching moments. Hence, I included "touristy tips," and lest it should be too terribly boring, Tasties wandered their ways in with the stories.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Newman Springs Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Mar 29, 2024
• ISBN: 9798887638348

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Table of Contents

Title

Copyright

Recipes

About the Author

What the Heck Happened?

Tales of Trips, Travails, Traumas, Tours, Triumphs, Transits, Treks, Truths, Traipses, Trip Ups, Tasties, Treasures, and Touristy Tips As Told by Typical Traveling Tattletellers

Robin Dohrman Ayers

Copyright © 2024 Robin Dohrman Ayers

All rights reserved

First Edition

NEWMAN SPRINGS PUBLISHING

320 Broad Street

Red Bank, NJ 07701

First originally published by Newman Springs Publishing 2024

ISBN 979-8-88763-833-1 (Paperback)

ISBN 979-8-88763-834-8 (Digital)

Printed in the United States of America

To Kathleen Puhalla, who has been an angel in lots of ways to our family for over forty years. One of her gifts is to ever encourage us as we depart on one of our adventures but to also be truly happy to see us when we're back. And she has never once asked, Were you out of your minds? or Surely you knew better! I like that. She has even been part of a tale or two!

We love you, Kathy!

This is the second in the What the Heck Happened series that began with What the Heck Happened to the Last 30(crossed out) 40 Years?? which is a collection of thoughts on aging for those entering the continuum, that would be all of us, or for those given the responsibility for someone who is more actively in it.

Believe it or not, these were not the only T words considered. My collective list from friends (and maybe frenemies) regarding groups who travel together also included tattlers/troupe/traversers/throng/tagalongs/team/troop/tribe/trippers/tiospaye (family in Lakota Sioux)/teaghlach (Gaelic for family). So I narrowed it down to what I felt comfortable handling.

Just for clarification and to keep from getting my butt sued off, we do not have a test kitchen, so I have not created many of these recipes myself. Actually, only a few. Okay, I've/we've made several of the recipes, but I have documented or credited the recipes I've applied to these stories, and I feel you'll find them quite satisfactory. However, a couple of them are just plain funny. Enjoy!

Be yourself; everyone else is taken.

—Oscar Wilde

It seems that I/we have a proclivity toward excitement when we travel, and I use the word excitement in the loosest of terms. There is usually some form of incident or excitement or trauma on every trip. Our friends anxiously(?) await the next chapter by word of mouth or Facebook/Meta.

Let's start with a rousing round of the old bus chaperone entertainment song for school kids:

99 Bottles of Beer

99 bottles of beer on the wall,

99 bottles of beer…

Take one down and pass it around…

98 bottles of beer on the wall…

98 bottles of beer on the wall,

98 bottles of beer…

Take one down and pass it around…

97 bottles of beer on the wall.

Or was it this other one? Keep in mind these words from Lauren Alaina's Road Less Traveled:

If you trust your rebel heart, ride it into battle

Don't be afraid, take the road less traveled

Wear out your boots and kick up the gravel

Don't be afraid, take the road less traveled on

Don't follow anyone

March to the rhythm of a different drum

Touristy tip #1

Before you start on any trip, hop on over to the closest dollar store (ha ha), and get a one-inch click-open notebook into which you put any and all things relative to your trip, even your scrappy notes because, more than once, they will contain that one little note regarding some tiny tidbit, like a confirmation number. Immediately prior to that wonderful trip into which you've put all your loving, planning, time, and work, type all information into one usable document to go in the very front of that notebook. Stuff the other scribbles behind it, just in case. When we took our thirty-two-day, 7,500-mile trip across the United States and back, I typed every day in the same format so I could find things before we went on the road. The only squabble we had was somewhere in southern Louisiana, when I had no cell signal and had forgotten to write the address for our hotel, which we could've used for the car GPS. We ended up in the middle of some oil refineries and run-down-looking buildings, close to the Gulf with Kenny repeating over and over, Where do I go? Where do I go? and continuing to drive all the while in circles. In a quite ominous tone, I said, "Pull over, and if you say that one more time, I'm getting out of this car!"

Thank God he did because I realized later that in my frustration, I had said the dumbest thing ever! The only bargaining chip I had was that I held the notebook of all other vital information. Once we blew off some steam and admitted we'd been driving in circles, we got out of that rut and struck a tangent in a direction that finally took us to civilization, although there was something about that town that never did quite gel for me, direction-wise.

By Countries

Touristy tip #2

Don't forget the passports! Order or renew way ahead of your trip and check those expiry dates. Not doing so cost us a bunch of blood, sweat, tears, and money prior to one trip.

Canada

The Thousand Islands

During our time in Gananoque, Ontario, we often visited with our dear friends, Walt and Rene (the same one mentioned with tarts), who spent their summers caretaking one of the islands. Their residence during this time was the cabin-type apartment above the boathouse, a most splendiferous place, sitting above the great St. Lawrence River with a deck view across big water, granite islands, birds, a variety of watercraft, and the occasional fish.

Here, Rene gifted us with her splendid lunches and cared not if I inquired into her recipes (except that I missed getting her butter tart one). This one was delicious in her typical style but a real headscratcher. I'd never seen nor read about this in all my cavernous spelunking of cookbooks.

Mashed and Mixed—Tasty

I remember sitting at the table of the summer cabin, seeing board floors and red gingham oilcloth somewhere and a squeaky screen door.

Rene's Mashed Potato Salad (Serves 8)

6 russet potatoes

1 small red onion, diced

3 hard-cooked eggs, chopped

1/2 c. diced celery

1/4 c. pickle relish, sweet or dill

Salt and pepper to taste

1 c. mayonnaise

1/3 c. pickle juice

1 t prepared yellow mustard

Directions

Place potatoes into a large pot and cover with salted water. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer until tender, about 20 minutes. Drain and transfer potatoes to a large bowl.

Mash potatoes with a potato masher, leaving it as chunky as you like. Stir in onion, eggs, celery, pickle relish, salt, and black pepper. Mix mayonnaise, pickle juice, and mustard in a separate bowl; pour over potatoes and mix well. Cover and refrigerate for at least 1 hour before serving.

(Almost) Gone in Gan—Travail

Gananoque. For twenty-nine years, members of my family in various combinations traveled to Ontario and stayed in or around a small but extremely tidy town called Gananoque. We met and made dear friends, whose memories always pump up my serotonin levels. However, there was one incident as we are wont to have that was more like a fight or flight situation. After the long trip up Interstate 81 from Winchester, Virginia, through customs at the US/Canada border, and on to our campsite there, we finally collapsed on the air mattress in our tent and passed out. Now our campsite happened to be on a craggy point high over the St. Lawrence River because everybody else filled up the cottage. What did we care? We liked our tent and air mattress. Before long, the wind kicked up; the tent began to flap and fell on us; and torrential rain started dumping!

Now my natural instinct was to hold that tent up off my face so I wouldn't suffocate. However, when the surface tension of tent material is broken, it begins to leak. Well, it didn't leak. It poured down our arms and into our armpits and soon created the sensation of floating on an island in the dark, on that air mattress! After an awfully long while, the storm passed, and even in our drenched state, we slept. When morning arrived all too soon, I felt joyful! Tapping the whole way down the front of my nightshirt, I was dry! I didn't care what miracle had occurred. I was dry! Then I staggered to my feet off the now sagging air mattress, and water cascaded off the back of my not-dry-after-all nightshirt. We were sopped; the tent was sopped; the air mattress was sopped. However, later that day, we went on to learn that we had survived a tornado, up on that rocky point, over the mighty St. Lawrence River, in our small tent with a new definition of waterbed. These things don't happen normally to those not bent on extreme conditions, do they? Even if they do, remember, ours is cumulative.

Touristy tip #3

When in Gananoque, grab a City Cruise, such as the Original Heart of the 1000 Islands Cruise with views of the Admiralty and Navy groups of islands or catch the Gananoque Boat Line from the city docks to Boldt Castle and Heart Island and discover the love story within. Or take the triple-decker riverboat cruise on the Island Queen, out of Kingston, and discover the tales of the islands with entertainment.

Uh-uh Un-tasty

From the time that my sister was three or so, her cooking was notoriously, well, gross. She combined some things that didn't even have food groups! One of her favorite snack combinations was dill pickles and iced tea, which always made her stomach hurt. That didn't even slow her down. However, Bonnie's hugest faux pas occurred after her car wreck, so we excused it to the head injury, sort of. As a treat for our special picnic with our Canadian hosts, Donna and Ian, Bonnie provided a lovely homemade pie. Now knowing this came from her created concern to begin with, but one by one, people around the table braved that pie, and faces presented the same conclusion—something had gone terribly wrong, even for Bonnie. Our host, Ian, being an extremely well-mannered sort, excused himself and his plate from the table as people related to Bonnie began to discuss her sanity. Salt could never be substituted for sugar!

In true Bonnie fashion, she just soldiered forth on her piece of pie and gave some lame reason why it was just wonderful (that head injury made her as full of blarney as any good Irishman! The thing is, I never quite figured if the current Bonnie had completely scrambled her brain in the wreck or if part of her state wasn't the way she would have been anyway). After some discussion, Ian returned to the table (minus his plate) remarking how good the pie had been. After Bonnie toddled off to some other mischief, we quizzed Ian on how he'd made it through the pie. He completely shrugged it off, winked, and told us his pie had an untimely accident and was currently resting up in the back of the flowerbed.

T-t-tasty Tarts

Our friend, Rene, made a much safer and quite remarkable treat called butter tarts, which we had only seen in Ontario up to that point, and they were luscious! We enjoyed these over the boats in an island boathouse in Thousand Islands, Canada. Because she is now gone, I happened to see in one of her books that author Diane Pascoe, of Life Isn't Perfect, but My Lipstick Is notoriety, also dabbled in butter tarts. So I begged for her recipe, and look what I got!

Butter Tarts

Makes 12 tarts

Crust

1 1/2 cups flour

1/4 teaspoons salt

1/4 cup cold butter, cubed

1/4 cup shortening, cubed

1 egg yolk

1 teaspoon vinegar

Ice water

Filling

1/2 cup packed brown sugar

1/2 cup corn syrup

1 egg

2 tablespoons butter, softened

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 teaspoon vinegar

1 pinch salt

1/4 cup currants, raisins,